Mike Chavers Politics of an Independent Voter

ACE's with the Nelms / Chavers Band

2011-05-27T15:00:00.000-07:00

Saturday, May 28 (7-11pm)

Woody's River Roo, Ellenton Florida
You won't want to miss this special performance at the River Roo. Right on the river in Ellenton, it's as Floridian as it gets, with grouper on the plates and gators in the marina. Charlie will be fronting the Big Scene band, with Tom Bell on acoustic guitar and Kevin Wilder on keyboards. He'll be playing the slide guitar, the lap steel and all kinds of other steampunk gadgetry. Charlie's heading off next week on a tour of Spain and Switzerland, so this will be the last local CMB show until late July.

Sunday, May 29th 2011
Ace’s, Bradnenton, Florida

The Nelms / Chavers Band is playing at ACE’s and will be broadcast live and in living color on The Blues Channel 4pm Sunday afternoon you can listen live here http://theblueschannel.com/
or just drive on over to Ace’s go to their link for directions.

Bluesfuly yours
Mike Chavers

The Reason We May See $5 a Gallon Gas.

2011-05-12T08:34:00.000-07:00

There is a reason that gas prices are rising even though the price of extracting oil has not changed and we can blame congress. With the deregulation of the financial markets, started by Billy Clinton and George W. prices of oil have skyrocketed like they did in 2008.

Unless congress keeps a leash on the speculators we will see the price of gas at historic levels before summers end. Secretary Geithenr wants to put a regulatory loophole into the Dodd-Frank financial regulatory reform bill that would allow hedge funds along with institutional investors to control unlimited quantities of oil contracts. They can manipulate the price and never even take possession of a single gallon of gas. Gary Gensler, Commissioner of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is against this loophole.

Congress must curb the influences of big traders in the markets for crude, gasoline, heating oil and natural gas. The speculative bubble in oil prices has detrimental consequences for the real economy. The CFTC must aggressively limit the number of contracts a single firm can hold.

Wall Street is opposed to this and they have lobbied and won with two decades of market deregulation. Congress, both Democrats and Republicans both have catered to the needs of financial speculators rather than bona-fide consumers.

There is plenty of evidence of excessive speculation in the commodities market yet congress still wants to weaken the Dodd-Frank legislation that would limit the quantities of oil contracts one company could hold. Congress should do what it is supposed to do which is to protect legitimate markets and consumers from the very speculators who brought the country to its knees with the financial crisis of 2008.
Undo influence of corporate lobbyists in getting congress to due their bidding is affecting our whole economy again unless we the people demand change get ready to get screwed again. Don’t let congress weaken the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.

Jim Hightower | FROM DEMOCRACY TO PLUTOCRACY

2011-03-17T08:22:00.000-07:00

Jim Hightower | FROM DEMOCRACY TO PLUTOCRACY

What would the founders of this country have to say to the stewards of their dream today? They wanted individual liberty, prosperity and a government as so elegantly described by Abraham Lincoln as a nation, under God to have a “government of the people, by the people, for the people.”

Well that dream doesn’t exist anymore. What we have is a Plutocracy government of the corporations, by the corporations, for the corporations, paid for by the serfs we have become.

Constitutional Amendments 11-20

2011-01-06T08:23:00.000-08:00

Well they are supposed to read this in congress today I hope all the congress critters pay attention and learn somthing...

Bill Of Rights [First 10 Amendments]

2011-01-06T07:49:00.000-08:00

Well they are supposed to read this in congress today I hope all the congress critters pay attention and learn somthing...

United States Constitution 3/3

2011-01-06T07:39:00.000-08:00

Well they are supposed to read this in congress today I hope all the congress critters pay attention and learn somthing...

United States Constitution 2/3

2011-01-06T07:32:00.000-08:00

Well they are supposed to read this in congress today I hope all the congress critters pay attention and learn somthing...

United States Constitution 1/3

2011-01-06T07:26:00.000-08:00

Well they are supposed to read this in congress today I hope all the congress critters pay attention and learn somthing...

Mike Chavers for President 2012

2010-07-22T10:41:00.000-07:00

The Mike Chavers for president agenda:

No matter if you’re a Democrat or Republican, or as we should now group them together and call them Republicrats, term via my buddy Red L.

I will veto any bill that is not funded, deficit spending needs to stop. I will tell congress to stop this by passing a pay as you go law.

I will reduce spending by canceling the escalation in Dumbfuckistan declare victory and leave.

I will declare victory in Iraq and leave.

If I order troops to another country for more than 90 days I will get a declaration of war from congress.

I will see to it that congress repeals the patriot act and restores the FISA law to what it was before W shredded the constitution.

I will tell any country that harbors terrorists that we will find and kill those countries leaders and their families.

I will close at least half of the military bases around the world.

I will double the space program and keep the shuttle or some other transport controlled by America so that no one will control the high ground of space but America.

I will tell congress to stop this fiat monetary system and go back to the gold standard.

I will end the Federal Reserve.

I will have congress end the Monopoly that the drug companies have on their products so Americans will be able to afford life saving medications.

I will have congress repeal NAFTA, CAFTA, and any other trade agreement that causes American Industries to ship American jobs overseas.

I will have congress end all corporate loopholes for tax evasion. No more Cayman Island mailboxes for corporate headquarters

I will have congress can end all subsidies to oil companies and any other industry. The only subsidies that should be in place are ones that are vital to our National Defense.

I will shift our dependency on oil by implementing and massive moon-shot like program to develop and manufacture, American made solar, wind, bio-fuel, wave based, nuclear and any other energy program that is based on renewable source.

I will have congress break up the big banks that nearly took us over the abyss in 2008 and restore the Glass-Stegall act.

I will have congress implement a national service draft that will either require at least 2 years of service to the military or some social agency in order to have the privilege of being an American.

If there is a war that requires a draft, everyone will serve so that it will be everyone’s skin in the game.

Every American that servers in this system will have VA type medical insurance privilege, or you can buy private health care with subsidies so that no American will die because they cannot afford a doctor or life saving drugs.

All money that is put into Social Security will stay for Social Security and not be used as general revenue.

Government will regulate and enforce the safety of any industry that can do harm to people or property or the environment.

I will stop illegal immigration by closing the boarders and enforce existing immigration law.

I will have congress enact stringent penalties on employers who hire illegal immigrants.

I will have congress put an independent ethics committee that has full power of investigation, and prosecution of corruption, of any public official.

I will have congress pass a law that anyone or thing, that advertises for or against a political issue will identify where the money is coming from in the ad.

Every dollar that comes in for a campaign will be identified where it is from available on the internet to anyone.

Every public official will be required to list on a publicly available internet site any lobbyist / fundraiser they spend time with under penalty of law for omit.

The government will operate with total transparency.

In conclusion everyone needs to start thinking what you’re for instead of against, because if you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything.

Change you can believe in.

BP Is a Corporate Criminal by Jim Hightower on Creators.com - A Syndicate Of Talent

2010-06-22T09:08:00.000-07:00

BP Is a Corporate Criminal by Jim Hightower on Creators.com - A Syndicate Of Talent

10 Most Awkward Political Gaffes

2010-06-22T08:56:00.000-07:00

The Federal Reserve, Zombie Banks, and Other Monsters We Need to Kill

2010-04-01T08:48:00.000-07:00

The Federal Reserve System - is the central banking system of the United States. This system was conceived by several of the world's leading bankers in 1910 and enacted in 1913, with the passing of the Federal Reserve Act. The passing of the Federal Reserve Act was largely a response to prior financial panics and bank runs, the most severe of which being the Panic of 1907.

A zombie bank - is a financial institution that has an economic net worth less than zero but continues to operate because its ability to repay its debts is shored up by implicit or explicit government credit support.

Well apparently to Bloomberg News has given us another reason to get rid of the Federal Reserve. Lost in all the noise surrounding the “The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act” we have some news on financial reform. On March 19, Bloomberg won its lawsuit against the Federal Reserve for information that could expose which “too big to fail” banks in the United States are zombie banks not dead just merely rotting.

Bloomberg is fighting for transparency at both the Federal Reserve and the financial sector. So you think $700 billion for the (TARP) bailout bill passed with bipartisan support is a big deal? Well it is just small potatoes compared to the estimated $2 to $3 Trillion flowing from the printing presses out the back door of the Federal Reserve into the too big to fail banks to artificially prop up the financial system at the beginning of the economic collapse in September 2008.

In November 2008, Bloomberg filed a Freedom of Information Act request asking the Fed which of the failing institutions were receiving the money, how much, and what collateral was being used for these loans, based on the argument that when trillions of taxpayer dollars is being loaned out to failing institutions the taxpayer has a right to know the chances of being paid back.

When the fed thumbed its nose to the request, Bloomberg sued in Federal Court and won, but the Fed’s appealed. A three judge appellate panel dismissed the Fed’s argument and said that the public deserved answers.

Ben Bernake started his new term as Fed Chair after a rocky confirmation fight and pledged openness and transparency. He was quoted saying. "It is essential that the public have the information it needs to understand and be assured of the integrity of all our operations, including all aspects of our balance sheet and our financial controls,"

The law says that the Fed is only to take investment grade assets as collateral. Is the Fed stonewalling to hide the fact that it broke the law by accepting the toxic assets of these institutions as collateral?

Or is the Fed hiding the secret assistance it provided to these failing institutions because it would surface how many of these Wall Street institutions really are zombie banks, kept alive only by accounting tricks.

We the people deserve answers, this money does not belong to the Fed’s it is the people’s money and we have a right to know where more than $2 trillion of the people’s money has gone.

Mr. President you and Mr. Bernanke must live up to your pledges of transparency. Abandon your lawsuit and open the doors and the books on the Federal Reserve.

Peace, liberty, and Prosperity through intelligence, strength, and integrity.

Let's form a Red, White, and Blue Party

2010-02-22T08:03:00.000-08:00

Let's form a Red, White, and Blue Party

By Michael Chavers

There is a lot of trash talk from the Right and Left sides these days from the liberal blogs to the Glenn Limbaugh's radio show. The problem with politics in America today is that there is the Red party and the Blue party but there doesn't seem to be a Red, White, and Blue party.

The Republicans want to embrace the Tea Party, and both seem to want a strong military, but don't want to finance it; they don't like social programs like Medicare, but readily accept their Medicare benefits; they don't like the federal bailout of our financial markets, but would be angry if the government did nothing and their investments and retirements went down the drain; they want strong border controls, but again don't want to pay for it.

The left, who believes that they are entitled to and can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury, will vote for the candidates who promise the most benefits, are in for a serious shot of reality shortly.

We all need to become Americans again and pull together and face reality. We can't ignore our healthcare crisis, we cannot be the world's policeman any longer, we can't allow big banks to become too big to fail, we need strong border controls and we need to go back to the core principles that this country was founded on.

Right wingers trash the left and the left trashes the right. Most Americans hate this and want real answers, and not what politicians think we want to hear so they can get elected.

We need to quit trashing each other. We need to defend the constitution and individual freedoms, we need fair elections, we need to fumigate Washington and end the endless flood of cash to the politicians who are ruining our country. We need to regulate our financial markets so that they do not become too big to fail. If not we will become a shadow of our former greatness and ruin our grandchildrens' future.

Peace, Liberty, and Prosperity through intelligence, strength, and integrity.

The Best Way to House the Haitian Earthquake Refugees

2010-01-26T12:03:00.000-08:00

We have a humanitarian disaster bigger than the one already occurring on the ground in Haiti. When the rainy season comes, with all the tropical storms and hurricanes that come plowing through this area every summer, we can count on a disaster that could dwarf the death toll from this earthquake.

A major hurricane, could strike hundreds of thousands of people with little or no shelter. One of the quickest solutions and one that would be very cost effective would be to use the steel waterproof shipping containers cargo ships use to deliver goods to the world.

Now the U.S.A. with all its good intentions tends to get all bogged down and the logic gets all mixed up and complicated in offering aid. With Katrina for instance, we built thousands of formaldehyde poisoned 234 sq ft trailers, that while FEMA flat out refuses to say how much the government paid but reliable estimates by the New York Times & others place the cost at over $60,000 each.

Because the United States has a huge trade deficit the U.S. imports estimated 9 million units a year and exports only 6 million. The leftover shipping containers are being left in U.S. harbors because it is cheaper for the steamship lines to leave empty containers at American ports than to pay the freight to ship them back to their ports of origin.

These containers are waterproof and weather tight they can be stacked because of their uniform dimensions and several companies have developed designs for offices for construction sites and emergency shelter. These containers would be safer and more secure than the homes that most Haitians were living in before the quake.

Why bring in tents, let’s get a relief project right this time and use the right material. These containers are built to stack and with stand the storms of the open ocean. I think these a logical approach to the rebuilding of Haiti.

Go to these web sites and see the uses to shipping containers.
http://www.architectureaustralia.com.au/aa/aaissue.php?issueid=200109&article=11&typeon=2

http://www.fabprefab.com/fabfiles/containerbayhome.htm

Peace and Liberty through intelligence, strength, and integrity

Don't Let Corporations Steal Our Elections

2010-01-21T10:58:00.000-08:00

Well boys and girls we are now AmeriKa the land of the bought and paid for…

2010-01-21T10:40:00.000-08:00

The Supreme Court has just announced its decision in Citizens United v. FEC and they gave corporations the same political speech rights as you and I. In a narrow 5-4 decision, the Roberts Court overturned the 60-year-old ban on corporate spending in elections.

Now Corporate America has the Courts approval to use its immense wealth to buy elected officials Republican or Democrat. The court’s decision in Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission struck down 60 years of legal precedent prohibiting corporations from making campaign expenditures to attack or support political candidates.

The curt ruled that the First Amendment which was designed to protect the speech of you and I the real live humans, now protects the for-profit corporations the right to influence elections.

Talk about shredding the Constitution and giving the middle finger to the founders of this great nation. Public Citizen has a video on what can be done in response to the Supreme Court’s decision.

Go to this link because we must fight back. This is not about the Political Left vs. Right this is about the fight between the Top & Bottom People vs. corporations so if you think you’re part of the bottom you better take some action.

With this ruling corporations can pour huge amounts of cash into political campaigns and anyone who may challenge the corporate agenda will be buried under the almost unlimited amount of corporate campaign cash.

This just isn’t right and we must defeat this ruling with a constitutional amendment amendment re-establishing that First Amendment protections (except for freedom of the press) do not apply to for-profit corporations.

Fight back and go to this link and take action.
http://action.citizen.org/t/10315/petition.jsp?petition_KEY=2190

Peace and Liberty through intelligence, strength, and integrity.

Screw you Mr. Potter... And BoA Too!

2010-01-07T09:25:00.001-08:00

January 7, 2010

Screw you Mr. Potter... And BoA Too!

By Michael Chavers

"I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore" was the anthem in the 1976 film Network. I'm going to make this my anthem and do something to take my two cents out of the coffers of the to big to fail bankers we just bailed out who have controlled the financial policies of this country since the Reagan years.

I have for the last several years have tried to buy local, from non-corporate entities, shopping at the chains when it was my last option. Where I failed to do this though was through my banking.

Well that's over now. What has driven me to write this was over Christmas I needed to buy some booze for a party I was giving and I had left my debit card home to try and keep from overspending. Well since booze is essential for my existence and that of my friends I needed to use my credit card.

I figured that I was close to the limit so before I left work that Friday I made a credit card payment on my Bank AmeriKa Visa from my Bank of AmeriKa debit account for a hundred dollars to avoid the hefty over limit fee the banks charge now.

Purchase approved mission accomplished. Well I looked at my Bank of America account Saturday and I see no record of the payment I made. My purchases where close to the limit but not over so I figured I must not have hit the confirm payment when I put the money into my credit card account.

Well I make a $25 dollar payment just to keep a few dollars on the card and decide I should do that too on my other credit cards figuring I have a hundred dollars to use that had not been taken from my checking account.

Well come Monday I look at my account and there goes the $100 bucks to Bank of America and payments for all my other credit cards which puts me in the red for about $64. Then on Tuesday I get 3 $35 dollar overdraft charges for payments I made on my credit cards and an $18 purchase.

Well I go into my closest Bank of America and sign the list to wait for several minutes to speak to a banker who tells me that it is my fault that the payment didn't post until Monday because they only post on business days. I tell him that my other cards take payments made before 3pm post the same day and after 3pm to the next. Then the banker tells me that that is not how Bank of AmeriKa does it and since it is my fault I am going to get charged with 3 $35 dollar over draft charges case closed.

Now so far I am out $110 dollars and 2 hours time. I'm mad as hell and I am not going to take it anymore.

This is a call to action and this really makes sense. You can kick your big banker in the place that really hurts their purse. Suze Orman thinks that the banks are screwing its customers and has suggested a back to cash movement. I think that is a great idea she has a web site and a movement has been started.

Even better than this we all should go even further and this is what I will be doing this week. I am going to close my Bank of AmeriKa accounts and move all my money into a local FDIC insured bank like the one we all probably saw Jimmy Stewart run in the Christmas movie It's A Wonderful Life.

If enough people do this we can make an impact. Check out these web sites and Viva la Revolution.

http://www.democracynow.org/2010/1/4/move_your_money_project_urges_people

http://www.suzeorman.com/index.cfm

Screw you Mr. Potter

The 11/3 project This is funny

2009-11-11T11:47:00.000-08:00

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

The 11/3 Project

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show
Full Episodes

Political Humor

Health Care Crisis

Faux News for those who can't think for themselves

2009-09-16T06:32:00.000-07:00

The Audacity of Ho's

2009-09-16T05:02:00.000-07:00

Jon stewart takes on ACORN coruption.

Very Funny

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-september-15-2009/the-audacity-of-hos

Glenn Beck the Big Dummy

2009-09-03T18:27:00.001-07:00

Glenn Beck the Big Dummy

2009-09-03T18:27:00.000-07:00

The Health Care Debacle

2009-08-07T14:34:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately most of the protesters that don’t want the government to interfere with their health plans don’t understand the way American health care works right now. The government is already deeply involved, even in private insurance. Government involvement is the only reason our system works at all.

Private insurers deny as many claims as they possibly can, and they also try to avoid covering people who are likely to get sick or need care. Their efforts to avoid paying medical bills or medical losses, the industry code language for paying out claims. Insurers spend much of the money taken in through premiums not on medical treatment, but on screening out people likely to make insurance claims.

Where people buy insurance directly rather than getting it through their employers, so much money goes into screening or underwriting and other expenses that only around 70 cents of each premium dollar actually goes to care. The only reason that the majority of people who have health insurance are reasonably satisfied with their insurance is government intervention.

The government already directly provides insurance via Medicare and Medicaid and although not perfect, surveys indicate that Medicare patients are generally much more satisfied with their coverage than Americans with private insurance.

Most Americans under 65 get insurance through their employers. The advantage of this method is that you and your employer get a tremendous tax advantage because the contributions are not considered taxable income. In order for your employer to get this tax break, they have to follow the rules that and they can’t discriminate based on pre-existing medical conditions or age. So for instance the only reason that I can get health insurance at my age of 58 with high blood pressure and a stint in an artery in my heart is because of government intervention.

Unregulated markets for health insurance don’t work and never have the only thing that keeps the majority of Americans insured is the government covers people over 65 and regulations and tax subsidies make it possible for many, but not all people under 65 to get decent and affordable private coverage.

So for all the disruptive protester at these town hall meetings, come up with a plan or give back your Medicare and Medicaid and try and get some private insurance that the government doesn’t regulate.

Peace, Liberty, and Prosperity through intelligence, strength, and integrity.

I Thought Steeling A Pension Was Illegal Mr. President

2009-06-05T12:52:00.000-07:00

I Thought Steeling A Pension Was Illegal Mr. President

While GM workers are losing their retirement health benefits, their jobs, their life savings; while shareholders are getting nada and many creditors will get nothing, a few privileged GM lenders, J P Morgan and Citibank, expect to get back 100% of their loans to GM, about $6 billion in all.

How does this happen and why aren’t the Union’s lawyers all over this??

You see when a company goes bankrupt, everyone loses. Workers lose some contract wages, stockholders get wiped out and creditors get a piece of what's left. That's the law. What workers don't lose are their pensions and that includes the old-age health funds, already taken from their wages and held in their name.

This time though Steve Rattner, Obam’s Car Czar wants to grab the pension funds to pay off J P Morgan and Citi Group by demanding the bankruptcy court to simply give the money GM owes workers for their retirement health insurance held in trust and replace it with GM stock.

This is illegal..!!!!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ERISA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pension_Benefit_Guaranty_Corporation

Pension money is protected from being seized in bankruptcy. Now though, the Obama Administration is demanding that money used to secure the old-age health funds, go to the very people who caused the financial melt down in the first place.

Under this plan GM’s pension assets are replaced with GM stock and this is illegal because the law requiring that companies, as fiduciaries, must "... act prudently and must diversify the plan's investments in order to minimize the risk of large losses." By "diversify" for safety, the law does not mean put 100% of worker funds into a single busted company's stock. Remember Enron who encouraged their worker to invest in Enron in their 401k plans.

Now we are going to throw thousands of workers out of work and give the money that would have funded the retiree’s health plan to J P Morgan and Citi Group, the same guys who have leeched up over one third of a trillion dollars in aid from you and me and replace it with worthless GM stock.

I got an idea let’s give the banks the stock and the pension plan keeps the cash.

If I had a business and ran its pension fund like this I’d end up in jail, but if the president and congress do it, it is business as usual in Washington DC.

Loyalty to country, always. Loyalty to the government when it deserves it." -- Mark Twain

2009-06-04T13:41:00.000-07:00

“I believe we should be embracing the egalitarian ideals and rebellious spirit of the American Revolution, and challenge the orthodoxy of the military industrial complex corporate order, and empower workaday Americans so we can control our own economic and political destinies.”

Michael Chavers

Well as far as I’m concerned none of these guys in Washington know much about anything and are selling the American people to the corporate elites.

The Republicans and the Democrats are so beholding to big money, you and me, the average guy who has to get up each morning to a more uncertain future is footing the bill for the mess that started way back in the 80’s under Ronnie.

Bankers you want free market deregulation well when you screw up big time don’t come to me asking for money you have turned me down or gave me some high interest credit card bull crap and fixed the laws so it is hard to ever pay off the debt you suckered us into.

--------------------

Good articles to read:

I wholly support this regulation and it’s about 4 years too late.

Regulator to Detail Plan for Derivatives
By STEPHEN LABATON

WASHINGTON — The new chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission will ask Congress on Thursday to impose substantial new costs and restrictions on large banks and other financial institutions that deal in the complex and largely unregulated financial instruments known as derivatives.

Gary G. Gensler, the top regulator for futures trading, will provide significant new details of a plan announced three weeks ago by the Treasury secretary, Timothy F. Geithner. Mr. Gensler will disclose his proposal before the Senate Agriculture Committee, which oversees the commission.
Lawmakers said they had been told that Mr. Gensler would propose two sets of regulations — one set for the individual dealers of derivatives and a second set for the marketplaces where the instruments are traded.

Mr. Gensler has said that taken together, the two sets of rules would largely eliminate the loopholes that critics said would have weakened the Treasury secretary’s plan, although some expressed concern that the proposals still might not go far enough to fully address problems that contributed to the market collapse.

Read the whole article here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/04/business/04regs.html?_r=1&ref=business

Goodbye, GM

Monday 01 June 2009
by: Michael Moore | Visit article original @ MichaelMoore.com
I write this on the morning of the end of the once-mighty General Motors. By high noon, the President of the United States will have made it official: General Motors, as we know it, has been totaled.

As I sit here in GM's birthplace, Flint, Michigan, I am surrounded by friends and family who are filled with anxiety about what will happen to them and to the town. Forty percent of the homes and businesses in the city have been abandoned. Imagine what it would be like if you lived in a city where almost every other house is empty. What would be your state of mind?

It is with sad irony that the company which invented "planned obsolescence" - the decision to build cars that would fall apart after a few years so that the customer would then have to buy a new one - has now made itself obsolete. It refused to build automobiles that the public wanted, cars that got great gas mileage, were as safe as they could be, and were exceedingly comfortable to drive. Oh - and that wouldn't start falling apart after two years. GM stubbornly fought environmental and safety regulations. Its executives arrogantly ignored the "inferior" Japanese and German cars, cars which would become the gold standard for automobile buyers. And it was hell-bent on punishing its unionized workforce, lopping off thousands of workers for no good reason other than to "improve" the short-term bottom line of the corporation. Beginning in the 1980s, when GM was posting record profits, it moved countless jobs to Mexico and elsewhere, thus destroying the lives of tens of thousands of hard-working Americans. The glaring stupidity of this policy was that, when they eliminated the income of so many middle class families, who did they think was going to be able to afford to buy their cars? History will record this blunder in the same way it now writes about the French building the Maginot Line or how the Romans cluelessly poisoned their own water system with lethal lead in its pipes.

So here we are at the deathbed of General Motors. The company's body not yet cold, and I find myself filled with - dare I say it - joy. It is not the joy of revenge against a corporation that ruined my hometown and brought misery, divorce, alcoholism, homelessness, physical and mental debilitation, and drug addiction to the people I grew up with. Nor do I, obviously, claim any joy in knowing that 21,000 more GM workers will be told that they, too, are without a job.

But you and I and the rest of America now own a car company! I know, I know - who on earth wants to run a car company? Who among us wants $50 billion of our tax dollars thrown down the rat hole of still trying to save GM? Let's be clear about this: The only way to save GM is to kill GM. Saving our precious industrial infrastructure, though, is another matter and must be a top priority. If we allow the shutting down and tearing down of our auto plants, we will sorely wish we still had them when we realize that those factories could have built the alternative energy systems we now desperately need. And when we realize that the best way to transport ourselves is on light rail and bullet trains and cleaner buses, how will we do this if we've allowed our industrial capacity and its skilled workforce to disappear?

Read the full article here:

http://www.truthout.org/060109A

THE BATTLE OF COAL RIVER VALLEY

Thursday, June 4, 2009 | Posted by Jim Hightower

"You've got to stand for something," sings John Mellencamp, "Or you're gonna fall for anything,"
Folks in West Virginia's Coal River Valley are no longer falling for the long litany of lies they've gotten from coal company executives and bought-off politicians. The corporate elites of the state have literally been destroying mountains, forests, streams, wildlife, livelihoods, human health, and whole communities in Appalachia by using a brutal and contemptible form of coal mining called "mountaintop removal."

For years, people here have tried the usual political and legal channels to stop this corporate assault – yet it continues. So people are now putting themselves on the line. "Somebody has to do something about it," says one Mountaineer, "so we do the little things we can."
One of those "little things" includes
Read the full article here:

http://jimhightower.com/node/6833

ACT NOW TO SAVE 3,500 GOOD AMERICAN JOBS

Tuesday, May 26, 2009 | Posted by Jim Hightower

Back when I had a job requiring me to wear suits, my brands of choice were Hart Shaffner Marx and Hickey Freeman. Fine suites they were, too – good cut, fine craftsmanship, fair price. Made me look mighty snappy, which isn't easy.
Both of those brands are now united in Hartmarx Corporation, which employs 3,500 top-quality workers in places like Rock Island, Illinois, and Rochester, New York. But now, those jobs and the future of Hartmarx, the largest maker of menswear in the nation, are in doubt.
http://jimhightower.com/node/6826

Stop the Money Chase

2009-03-23T10:32:00.001-07:00

Stop the Money Chase

Instead of drafting legislation that will regulate Wall Street Congress is feigning indignation over 165 million dollars given in bonuses to the AIG employees.

This is an amount that is almost insignificant compared to 170 Billion dollars congress gave with no strings attached. I did the math and the 165 million in bonuses amounts to less than one tenth of one percent of that 170 billion.

All this began because many of the politicians, who appear so outraged, helped to deregulate Wall Street and did so because they were chasing campaign funds from the lobbyists who represent Wall Street.

The most important thing that we can do at this time is to support campaign finance reform. I am asking everyone to support a legislation that is to be introduced later this week by Senators Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) called the Fair Elections Now Act. Fair Elections is a bi-partisan reform that will free our lawmakers from the never-ending fundraising treadmill and allow them to concentrate on the critical issues of the day.

Under Fair Elections, candidates would qualify for limited public money by raising a specific number of small donations from their community, and would receive additional funds to match their ongoing small contributions. They would be prohibited from taking any large contributions.

Get involved and get your friends involved help pass the Fair Elections Now Act. Congress needs to hear from we the people so that they know that we are tired of the money chase and we are not going to take it any more.

Here is an organization that is dedicated to this cause I encourage you to sign up for their email alerts on this issue.
http://www.publicampaign.org/

Here is the letter I am writing and feel free to use it or alter it and send it to your congressman ASAP.

Congressman Young

I strongly urge you to support the bi-partisan reform bill to be introduced later this week by Senators Dick Durbin and Arlen Specter called the Fair Elections Now Act.

Fair elections are about voters and not big campaign donors. This legislation is modeled after the successful clean elections laws in seven states and two cities. Candidates need to be able to seek public office without having to court big money special interests for campaign contributions

We need our lawmakers accountable to the only to the citizens and free from the never-ending fundraising treadmill so that they can concentrate on the critical issues of the day.

Sincerely
Michael Chavers

You can find your representative here.
http://www.house.gov/

Enough is enough stop the bailouts and start the Nationalization

2009-03-04T15:02:00.001-08:00

Enough is enough stop the bailouts and start the Nationalization

Here we go again more bad news from A.I.G. For the last 30 years both the Democrats and Republicans gutted the basic laws and enforcement i.e. financial regulations, anti-trust prosecutions that prevented financial institutions from becoming as we have been told “too big to fail” and David Sirota said in his latest column If It's Too Big to Fail, It's Too Big to Be Private.

We are going to have to realize that we can’t and should not bailout these huge corporations who have operated without prudence and common sense. What needs to be done is nationalize these institutions and fire the executives whose responsibility was to protect their investors with sound investments strategies, investigate any possible crimes that where committed. We could then unload the toxic debt for its real value break up these giants that are to big to fail and resize them and sell them back to private enterprise, so that one failure will not cause the tumbling of the house of cards as we have today.

There is a lot of money for investment but people are just not investing now because of the uncertainty on what the government will do. We know the government is going to do something, but like Ron Paul said “will it act like a chicken with its head cut off” and if you have never seen this before you don’t know what direction that bird is going to run just that it will flail about until it collapses. We need a sound monetary policy and some incentives for investing in the stock market again like removing the capital gains tax for investments made into the stock market and left there for two years.

The government should cut spending. Bush and company spent this country into the poor house and his policies are the initial cause of this mess. Now with president Obama’s massive spending we are being put into a huge pit debt that will probably take decades to recover from if we ever do.

All we hear from Rush Limbaugh and most of the Rightwing, is Obama is getting us into such a mess, and I hope Obama fails, well lets lay the blame where it belongs and not rewrite history like Karl Rove would have us do. By the way Rush I saw you on the C-PAC show and WTF, were you going for the bloated Tony Manero Saturday Night Fever look, GEEEEEE WIZ.

Let’s Start with the $3 trillion cost of George W's misadventure in Iraq that the White House and Congress Republican and Democrat alike merrily slapped on our children's future. Or, remember just a few months back when Bush's treasury secretary and Federal Reserve chief madly borrowed several trillion dollars from our children to stuff into the pockets of Wall Street executives, with no requirements that the banks do anything productive with the money?

So let’s get this straight, Republicans controlled congress for 6 years and the White House, for 8 years. The Republican-driven deficits dwarf Obama's spending. They saddle future generations with enormous costs for, as Jindal put it, "things we don't need," without returning any benefits to our country.

President Obama wants to create jobs and I think the first jobs Obama should create are hiring enough Border Patrol officers to secure our seaports and borders. He can immediately put people to work at the IRS investigating corporations who have been cheating on their taxes. He can put people to work by beefing up the SEC’s investigation personal so that we won’t have ponzi schemes that go on for years under the noses of the SEC undiscovered until after large numbers of people are duped into investing their life savings into worthless paper.

Some of the spending in Obama’s recovery package will buy roads, schoolhouses, water systems, parks, health care, mass transit, renewable energy and other real projects that we really do need. These things will be there to benefit future generations and me and many of my conservative friends support these things.

With our deficit problem though I think that the $237 Billion that gives $400 dollars to each worker isn’t going to be much help I would rather see that money used for more infrastructure projects. There are a lot of things in this stimulus package that I don’t agree with but we all should look at it and figure out where our priorities are and get busy and get congress to work on measures that will fix our economy and unite this country.

Peace, Liberty, and Prosperity through intelligence, strength, and integrity.

TO EVERYONE WHO HAS PROGRESS ENERGY

2009-02-04T08:32:00.000-08:00

TO EVERYONE WHO HAS PROGRESS ENERGY:

PLEASE BE AWARE THAT YOU ARE NOW PAYING OVER 25% MORE FOR YOUR ELECTRICITY THAN CUSTOMERS OF FLORIDA POWER AND LIGHT CO. WE CAN TRY TO HAVE THIS INCREASE OVERTURNED BY FILING A COMPLAINT WITH THE FLORIDA PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION.

IT IS VERY EASY; Go on line at and fill in the complaint form. Feel free to use my letter or alter it any way you like to use.
http://www.floridapsc.com/consumers/complaints/index.aspx

OR CALL 1-800-342-3552. THERE WILL BE A MEETING IN MARCH, SO THE SOONER YOU DO THIS THE BETTER. THEY HAVE HAD THOUSANDS OF CALLS ABOUT THIS INCREASE, SO EVERY CALL WILL BE COUNTED.

Here is a site dedicated to helping consumers with info on Progress Energy
http://www.fireprogressenergy.com/

PROGRESS ENERGY Complaint letter to FLA Public Service Commission

Who decided that Progress Energy should be subsidized in their efforts to capitalize off building a nuclear power plant? It is very obvious that green energy is going to be a booming market in the very near future. Companies that can come up with new technologies and the infrastructure to deliver clean energy have a very bright future.

However, they should all have to compete for their share of this market but that’s not going to happen when you have a company that will have their infrastructure paid for when public officials approve a rate hike to pre pay for a new facility.

Also, what federal subsidies and contracts will Progress Energy be well positioned for after Floridians have paid for their new facilities? I don’t think that paying for Progress Energy’s construction costs is a fair or even wise move and I protest this increase.

Your Name
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Just remember "Even a little dog can piss on a big building." Jim Hightower " ...
Visit my web site Politics of an Independent Voter
http://michaelchavers.blogspot.com/
Mike Chavers

Peace and Liberty Through Intelligence, Strength and Integrity

2009-01-19T12:22:00.000-08:00

Anyone who has followed my blog or articles at OpEd News has perhaps noticed that I signoff every time with my mantra, Peace and Liberty through intelligence, strength, and integrity. Today we stand on the verge of a total change in philosophy of how our federal government will behave nationally and internationally.

I believe that we have elected a new leader in Barack Obama, who possesses the intelligence, strength and integrity to bring Peace and Liberty and I shall add one more condition to this mantra, prosperity, to a nation that has veered so far off course for the last eight years.

Our new president has many challenges ahead. We as a people have many challenges ahead so let us put our differences aside and work together at least on the issues that we agree on.

Least not we forget that we are the heirs of the revolution that formed this great nation the United States of America. The torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans born in the 20th century and their deeds will shape the 21st century. Let us remain proud of our heritage and remain steadfast in defense of the Constitution.

Let every enemy foreign or domestic, that wishes us ill know, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, in order to assure the survival and success of our liberty.

In a world where the instruments of war have far outpaced the instruments of peace, let us begin a quest for peace before the powers of destruction unleashed by science engulf all humanity in self destruction.

We dare not tempt the enemies of liberty with weakness. We must remain strong to the point that any enemy, domestic of foreign who would attack our liberty will know with certainty that they must fail.

To the world let us never negotiate out of fear but we must remember we should never fear to negotiate. We must always find what unites us instead of belaboring those problems which divide us.

Let America stand for invoking the wonders of science instead of its terrors. Let us create clean and renewable energy, eradicate disease, protect the environment, explore the universe, encourage the arts and commerce.

Let us together create a new world where the rule of law is supreme, where the strong are just and the weak shall be secure and the peace preserved. This may take longer than a lifetime but let us begin now.
Remember in the hands of our citizens more than Obama’s rests the final success or failure of the new course. Through mindful attention to our problems we must struggle against the common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease, and war.

We are at a turning point in the history of the world. The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will determine its outcome.

So president Obama I wish you Godspeed and will stand with all who shall support the principles of Peace, Liberty, and Prosperity, through intelligence, strength and integrity.

The real reason our financial crisis has happened. Runaway Greed

2008-11-12T11:43:00.001-08:00

The Securities and Exchange Commission was created during The Depression to restore a sense of trust to Wall Street and to instill investor confidence. That confidence has been dashed once again. The S.E.C. was like an aging third string quarterback trying to sit on the sidelines the rest of his career without getting dirty, all the while this crisis brewed and history repeats itself once again.

We used to have a regulation call “the net Capital Rule”, and what this did was to require investment banks to have a responsible cash reserve on hand for the companies to weather downturns in the market and to prevent excessive debt loads.

Well back in 2004 when the Republicans where in all their glory all the major Wall Street players led by Henry Paulson, then the Goldman Sachs CEO and now the current Treasury Secretary, put the squeeze on their buddies at the Securities and Exchange Commission aka S.E.C. to grant an exemption of this rule so they could take advantage of the sub prime mortgage market, with all their unregulated mortgage backed securities that promised to make everyone rich. Then with the unanimous vote of all five S.E.C. members granted this exemption of the rule to the investment banks of Wall Street. Unleash the pit bulls Igor, there ain’t no lipstick here.

Do I hear a WTF???

So what did they do with their safety net? They went to a crap shoot and laid it down on the sub prime mortgaged backed securities market, putting their shareholders and the entire stability of the market at great risk.

The commissioners ignored the lessons of the Savings & Loan disaster of the 80’s, when deregulating that industry led to enormous abuses, the point is boys, Foghorn Leghorn said so eloquently, pay attention when I’m talking to ya, you can’t allow the foxes to guard the hen house.

Then the Coup de grâce came when Bush appointed Christopher Cox as the S.E.C. chairman in 2005 and the first thing he did was to gut the effectiveness of the seven member oversight committee established to watch out for abuses of the securities market. Now Wall Street could do as they wished without any meaningful review.

Back in March 2008 Cox said “we have a good deal of comfort about the capital cushions at these firms at the moment” even though some in the S.E.C. warned about excessive debt and dangerous practices within the investment banks. Then a few days later Bear Stearns crashed and burned and was gobled up by JP Morgan Chase, using taxpayer money to the tune of 29 million dollars.

Then the dominoes started to tumble because of the emense bad debt the S.E.C. exemption allowed the investor banks to accumulate. Chairman Cox, running with his tail between his legs has said sheepishly “the last six months have made it abundantly clear that voluntary regulation does not work.”

Duh..!!!

Peace and Liberty through intelligence, strength, and integrity.

The Real America for Lipstick Wearing Pitbulls

2008-11-04T11:29:00.000-08:00

You know what gets me angry? Is watching Sarah Palin talk about how she is a real American. By her definition myself and more than half of the country must be fake Americans.

She runs around this great nation in her new 150 thousand dollar wardrobe and with that shrill nasal toned voice of hers talking incessantly about how small town, moose shootin, hockey moms like her are the real Americans. God help us if McCain gets elected and doesn’t live to finish his term and that piece of work Mrs. Palin becomes the president.

Well Mrs. Palin, I was born and raised in Niagara Falls, N.Y. I came up through public schools, I drive a Chevy one that was actually made in America, I drink beer, I pay taxes, and I work 2 jobs in order to barely squeak through each month, I have actually read the Constitution.

So don’t tell me I am not a real American, don’t call my friends who served their country and shed their blood in Viet Nam, that are Democrats are not real Americans. Don’t call my activist friends who watch and report when all you crooked politicians take money from corporate lobbyists. Your campaign of half truths and outright lies, I hope will come back to show you what the real Americans think of you.

My friends are white, black, Christian, Muslim, liberal, conservative, pro-choicer, and community organizers and free thinkers and that Mrs. Palin in your world is Anti-American.

Apparently in your view the only real Americans are the ones who show up for your rallies.

What is really un-American Mrs. Palin are people like you who are would divide us and enrich your war profiteering pals, practice policies that have bankrupted this country and involved us in foreign occupations while letting the plotters of 9/11 escape into Pakistan.

It is you Mrs. Palin and your so called maverick running mate who don’t under stand what makes this country great. It is the wonderful diversity of our people and the realization that no one group is more American than the next.

What unifies real Americans Mrs. Palin is our belief in that American values should work for the common good of all Americans, and those who would try to separate us from that unifying bond are the real enemies of America. So Mrs. Palin it is you and your maverick running mate who need to get real.

Peace and Liberty through intelligence, strength, and integrity.

McCain spotlight’s Obama’s associations. Let’s look at McCain’s..

2008-10-06T13:08:00.000-07:00

McCain spotlight’s Obama’s associations. Let’s look at McCain’s..

The Republican’s will be getting the blame of this economic crisis we are in by the independent voters this election. The only way that they can take the conversation from the issues that face the Nation like the war, health care, social security, and the economy, is by changing the subject.

Every time the candidates talk about real issues McCain’s numbers fall in the polls so the McCainiac’s will attack Obama about his ties to the Reverend Wright and Bill Ayers, the onetime Weatherman who has been a University of Illinois education professor for almost 20 years.

On Saturday that pesky little pit bull Palin said she has finally remembered what she reads and she went on to say that she reads the New York Times and cited a story and then had the nerve to accuse Senator Obama of “palling around with terrorists” . Actually I doubt that she even read the story. She got it from the McCainiac’s slime machine to parrot as she gallivants around the country trying hard to avoid real reporters and parroting lies to the republican base.

According to the Washington Post’s Harold Meyerson
“The story of Obama's interaction with Ayers is drenched in irony, since it is basically a tale of Obama being co-opted into Chicago's civic establishment. In 1995, Obama, then a young lawyer with political ambitions but as yet no office, was recruited to chair the board of a school reform organization funded and established by the Annenberg Foundation -- a group that distributes the wealth of the estate of Walter Annenberg, Richard Nixon's ambassador to Britain. It was only then that Obama met Ayers, who already was a board member and a figure in Chicago's education-policy elite. (Mayor Richard Daley, that known radical, told the Times that he had consulted Ayers on education issues for years.”
Well Johnny Boy what about you and your running mate’s dubious association’s

The McCain-Hagee Connection
http://www.cjr.org/campaign_desk/the_mccainhagee_connection_1.php

The McCain-Keating Connection, One Crook Went To Prison, The Other Is Running For President
http://mccainkeatingfive.com/

McCain's Spiritual Guide: Destroy Islam
http://www.motherjones.com/washington_dispatch/2008/03/john-mccain-rod-parsley-spiritual-guide.html

Gun Control Lobby Claims McCain Insider Had Ties to NRA Spy Op
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=5606100&page=1

Phil Gramm, John McCain's former economic adviser, asserting that the country "had become a nation of whiners" in a "mental recession."
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=5835269&page=1

Video of Palin and Stevens: The ‘Big Difference Between Reality and Perception’
http://www.propublica.org/article/video-of-palin-and-stevens-the-big-difference-903/

Palin's Church Promotes Gay Conversion
http://news.aol.com/elections/article/palins-church-promotes-gay-conversion/165471

The McCainiac’s have said big bad John will come into the October 7th presidential debate seeking to change the subject from the economy to Obama’s radical associations.

See John when you and your pit bull attack with lies and distortions not everyone is asleep as you would seem to believe. We are watching and we are not going to let you steal this election using the standard operating procedure of the Republican Party.

How about in a time of deepening economic crisis, let’s focus on the issues. America deserves a debate in which the candidates focus on their ideas for fixing the problems facing America rather than partisan attacks on Obama’s presumed associates.

Peace and Liberty through intelligence, strength, and integrity.

John McCaniac to the Rescue

2008-09-26T10:03:00.000-07:00

Well I for one am impressed on just how stupid the republican nominee for president is. As a self-proclaimed not so knowledgeable on economics kind of guy, John McCain is going to suspend his campaign to rescue Amerika.

Well I guess he means suspend any meaningful part of his campaign but not the muck racking mudslinging or ugly blatantly untrue TV commercials.

Well at least he can unleash his barely potty trained pit bull, who can still gallivant around the country and show everybody how unqualified she is to be Mayor of a tiny village let alone Vice President of this country just one heart beat away from being President of Amerika.

Have you seen the Katie interview yet? YIKES!!!!!!

So far I have to say that Congress has done a good job since in like a scene from the Godfather T. Sec. Henry Paulson delivered a “three page ransom note that said give me $700 billion, or I’d hate to see anything bad happen to that nice economy of yours.” I got that line from Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post.

I for one am glad that the Republicans decided to bolt from rushing into an agreement as flawed as the rush to war with Iraq.

Since we have allowed this situation to get this far this bailout needs to have lots of strings attached. In fact the hell with strings we need ropes chains and muzzles. Plus the Treasury better get a good return on their buck. Maybe that will bailout our social security problem too.

There is no way my tax dollars should reward the Greed Is Good crowd in corporate Amerika who through mismanagement corruption and bad judgment put their companies and our economy at risk.

But just how that ole coot McCain’s sour puss in Washington is going to help get a deal done when all he has done since the convention is slime Obama is beyond me. John don’t worry about it according to your own assessment the American Economy is fundamentally sound.

Here comes the smoke and mirrors again. John McCaniac riding the white horse to the White House to proclaim “We must meet as Americans, not as Democrats or Republicans” hooray John to the rescue he is putting politics aside that is except for his slime machine.

John stay the hell out of the way get out your leash and take your pit bull for a walk and let congress do its job.

Peace and Liberty through intelligence, strength and integrity.

Who’s to Blame For The Wall Street Crisis? We All Are.

2008-09-26T09:55:00.000-07:00

Pay attention everyone let’s have a little reality check. This financial crisis is not rocket science. It’s just like the obesity crisis. It ain’t the good carb bad carb, the good fats bad fats, it’s the calories stupid. If you eat more than you burn you get fat period.

It’s not the big bad credit card companies who are causing your debt it’s a lack of discipline in keeping a budget and spending more than you make, period.

When you make bad loans, bundle them up and sell them to Fannie and Freddie you are going to have worthless paper that the borrower will be unable to repay.

When you make unsound financial decisions your business fails, period. That is unless, you have friends who can make laws and spend other people’s money i.e. taxpayer dollars to prop your sorry asses up.

Well it’s time to pay up America. Trillions of dollars are going up in smoke thanks to the likes of the Gordon Gekko’s from the movie Wall Street and a congress that deregulated the very controls that could have kept this crisis from happening.

We will be ushering in a new era and hopefully some real conservatism, and fiscal responsibility. Greed is not good and America has abandoned the philosophy and principles that once made it great.

What the Bush administration and more recently McCain have abandoned, is true conservative values. We need to practice prudence and fiscal responsibility, balanced budgets and a self-reliant republic.

What the vast majority of American people have abandoned is, saving for retirement and a rainy day. For years, most Americans have spent more than they earn. Credit card debt, consumer debt, auto debt, mortgage debt, and corporate debt, all are at record levels. And with pensions and savings being wiped out, much of that debt may never be repaid.

Wall Street now cries Government must save us. We are too big to fail, the consequences will be dire. The consequences are dire and we must not allow this to happen again. We must operate with free market consequences not government socialism for Wall Street.

If we do not operate with genuine free market consequences we must intervene and put the leash and muzzle on Wall Street.

Here is the reality. Our economy is running because foreigners are buying our bonds and lending us money but this is going to come to an abrupt halt because they will rightly fear that if they ever get paid back and all it will be in cheaper dollars.

America lead by the money that influence in congress has abandoned the principles that once made us great. We have marched lock step forward into a global economy where we all depend on one another. American companies have moved plants and factories to anywhere labor is cheap forget about the American worker. The American consumer buys more cheaply form abroad what we used to make in the good ole USA. Can your even buy shoes, clothes, bikes, radios, TV’s or computers made in America?

Now our trade deficits are out of control. At home tax cuts for the rich, endless war, welfare for people who don’t deserve it and out of control government spending by the so called conservative Bush administration is sinking the value of the dollar. Just look at the soaring value of gold to the dollar.

Yet John McCain would make the Bush tax cuts permanent expand the military, move NATO into Georgia and start a war with Iran. Barack Obama is promising tax cuts to everyone but the wealthiest two percent.

Our democracy is at stake due to the fiscal crisis. A Scotsman named Alexander Tyler, a History professor from Scotland living about the time that our constitution was written in 1787 said this.

“A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves a generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship.”

What we are witnessing today is how empires end. What we have now is an America who is unable to defend its own borders, protect its currency, or even balance its budget. With out the discipline to solve this crisis Medicare and Social Security headed for disastrous consequences with under-Funded liabilities that will come to trillions of dollars.

Who do they want to manage this crisis? Bush and company want to give total control to Hank Paulson and Ben Bernake without oversight. They want to entrust an unelected financial elite with the assignment of getting us out of a disaster into which and unelected financial elite got us into in the first place with us as just spectators.

We used to be the richest, most powerful, most self-sufficient republic in world history, with the highest standard of living any nation had ever achieved. What is the solution to this crisis? Don’t lend money to people who can’t pay it back and who want government welfare to bail them out. Don’t save businesses that don’t follow sound fiscal principles. Invent it here, make it her, buy it here, and live within your means.

The rich, the middle class, and the poor are going to have to bite the bullet and realize that the free lunch is over and the bill has com due.

Peace and Liberty through intelligence, strength and integrity.

Obama Fight Back Pleeeeease.!!!!!

2008-09-11T13:39:00.001-07:00

They are swiftboating Obama and if he and Biden don't stop using the rope a dope tactic like Mohammed Ali did to wear-out his opponents, they will get KO’d just like Kerry and they will be left in November scratching their heads and saying, are the American people really that blind.

Well the fact is more than half of them never vote at all so at least half of the American people don’t even care about our country.

Of the people that vote almost half voted for Bush twice so about three quarters of the American people are completely out of touch with reality and if you put lipstick on a pig they will elect it vice president.

McCain the war hero is acting like coward hiding behind his spin doctors. He continually attacks Obama with half truths, out of context quotes, and outright lies. McCain can’t run on his own record, he must run from it.

The phony indignation the Republicans are faking, the newest ads that McCain has put out for the mass media. Chris Matthews had some Republican senators and congressmen on asking direct questions did they believe that Obama was actually calling Paulin a pig with lipstick and every last one started dancing like Sugar Ray Leonard did to Roberto Duran and did not directly answer the question.

Well Mr. McCain himself has used this phrase several times during the campaign as well as many other prominent Republicans have used the same phrase as was shown on Matthews show.

Both sides have declared a truce to commemorate the attacks on September 11, 2001 but McCain keeps up the cheap shots up to the last minute.

He released a TV ad saying Obama Favored “comprehensive sex education” for Kindergartners which is another line of crap what Obama favors is teaching children about inappropriate touching like the kind that happens when a child is molested by someone he or she trusts like their priest, or minister or congressman.

Now this ad refers to legislation Obama voted for, but did not sponsor in the Illinois Senate that allowed school boards to develop “age-appropriate” sex education courses at all levels, kindergarten teachers were given the approval to teach about appropriated and inappropriate touching to combat molestation. So what is McCain saying that McCain wants to protect the child molester.
Another McCain ad pins the swirl of Internet rumors about McCain's running mate to the Obama campaign. The reference to a mini-army was drawn from a Wall Street Journal column by conservative John Fund. A spokesman for the Democratic National Committee said yesterday that neither it nor the Obama campaign had any researchers or lawyers in Alaska.

Obama did fight back and say "We've got an energy crisis, we have an education system that is not working for too many of our children and making us less competitive. We have an economy that is creating hardship for families all across America. We've got two wars going on, veterans coming home not being cared for, and this is what they want to talk about."

Obama aides say the assaults will not work but I disagree, the untrue fabricated assaults on Kerry in the 2004 election where his downfall. Obama’s running mate Senator Joe Biden denounced the negativity pointing out that Bush smeared McCain in his 2000 race for the presidency and said "What really disappoints me is the very tactics used against him, they're trying to use against Barack Obama now," he said. "It's literally saddening. I didn't expect it, I didn't expect it. But I guess I should learn to expect everything."

Senator Obama you don’t even have to lie or tell half truths to hit back, their record speak for itself. McCain is no Einstein, finishing 5th from the bottom of his class from the U.S. Naval Academy. Out of 899 he finished 894.
He had extramarital affairs, in which he accepted the blame. He associated and was involved in the Keating Five scandal and was rebuked for his role by the Senate Ethics Committee.

McCain long ago made clear that the American economy is not his strong suit. In November 2005, McCain acknowledged: "I'm going to be honest: I know a lot less about economics than I do about military and foreign policy issues. I still need to be educated."

Two years later, McCain admitted making little progress in grasping Economics. As the Boston Globe reported in December 2007, economic policy is "a subject on which McCain has said he feels he is unknowledgeable and that filling the void would be a priority when selecting a vice-presidential nominee." To address this glaring shortfall, Republican presidential nominee claimed he had turned to the equivalent of Economics for Dummies:

"The issue of economics is not something I've understood as well as I should. I've got Greenspan's book." Given the recent housing market meltdown, the forced bail out of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, the hysteria gripping Wall Street and the global financial system. Americans should be concerned about the identity of McCain's mentor. After all, Greenspan played a critical role in bringing the United States to the brink of economic disaster.

In 1997 McCain was the chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee and he accepted funds from corporations and businesses under the committee’s purview. He voted against Bush’s tax cuts for the rich but has since recanted and votes for permanent tax breaks while the country has a massive deficit because of the war in Iraq and Bush’s spending orgy.

So Senator Obama if you want to be president, don’t bring a knife to a gun fight, don’t jump into an ass kicking contest with one leg, hit back and hit hard because these lies will bury your chances of being president, and stick us with John McCainiac and his pit bull with lipstick, at a time when this country needs smart intelligent leadership. You must lead us out of the hole that the Bush / Cheney administration and their Republican rubber stamp congress has put us into.

Peace and Liberty through intelligence, strength, and integrity.

Just the Facts

2008-09-08T18:21:00.000-07:00

Well the two parties have had their conventions bought and paid for by the corporate high rollers. All the candidates got to speak and stretch truth as politicians do.

John McCain said that the health care plan that Obama proposes would “force small businesses to cut jobs” and would put “a bureaucrat between your and your doctor.” In reality Obama’s plan exempts small businesses, and it also would allow those who have insurance now to could keep the coverage that they have.

Obama’s plan requires businesses to contribute to the cost of insurance for employees or pay some unspecified amount into a new public plan. But his proposal specifically says, “Small businesses will be exempt from this requirement.” And it offers additional help to small businesses that want to provide health care in the form of a refundable tax credit of up to half the cost of premiums. Neither McCain or Obama has defined what exactly a “small business” is.

Obama’s plan doesn’t “force” families into a “government-run health care system.” His plan mandates that children have coverage; there’s no mandate for adults. People can keep the health insurance they have now or chose from private plans, or opt for a new public plan that will offer coverage similar to what members of Congress have. Obama would also expand Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. His plan certainly expands government-offered insurance – and McCain’s doesn’t – but it’s not a solely government-run plan, as McCain implied. And if Obama's public plan turns out to be similar to what federal employees have, as he says it would be, we're not sure how "a bureaucrat" would stand "between you and your doctor." The possible exception would be persons covered by Medicaid or SCHIP.

McCain accused Obama for voting for “corporate welfare” for oil companies. In fact, the bill Obama voted for raised taxes on oil companies by $300 million over 11 years while providing $5.8 billion in subsidies for renewable energy, and energy efficiency and alternative fuels.

The bill McCain is talking about here is the 2005 energy bill, which actually raised taxes on the oil industry a little bit overall – by about $300 million, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service. Meanwhile, McCain himself proposes to cut the corporate rate for all companies – oil included – and that would result in an estimated $4 billion cut for the five largest U.S.-based oil companies, according to the Center for American Progress Action Fund. Obama, on the other hand, is promising that he'll strip oil companies of "tax breaks" to the tune of an amount yet to be determined.

It's true that Obama voted for the 2005 bill. He said he favored the $5.8 billion (over 11 years) that it contained in tax incentives for renewable energy, energy efficiency and alternative fuels. McCain voted against it on the grounds that the $2.6 billion it contained for oil and gas incentives was too much, even though the bill also took away $2.9 billion from the industry, for a net tax increase of $300 million. Describing such a complex measure as "corporate welfare" is misleading.
McCain said oil imports to the U.S. send “$700 billion a year to countries that don’t like us very much.” The fact is that America is on track to import a total of $536 billion of oil and almost 1/3 of this comes from Canada, Mexico, and England.

McCain promised to increase the use of “wind, tide, and solar” energy. His actual energy plan contains no new money for renewable energy and has said that renewable sources won’t produce as much as people think.

McCain in his speech called for “reducing government spending and getting rid of failed programs.” The only problem is that he failed to cite a single program that he would eliminate or reduce.

McCain has not said which programs he considers to be "failed programs." He thus makes the spending cuts sound less painful than they will be should he fulfill his previously stated promise to balance the federal budget by 2013 while also making all Bush tax cuts permanent and adding new cuts of his own. McCain repeated his promise to eliminate "earmarks" from federal spending bills, saying "the first big-spending pork-barrel earmark bill that comes across my desk, I will veto it." That drew applause, but the fact is that earmarks amount to only $16.9 billion in the current fiscal year, according to the Office of Management and Budget. Meanwhile, the deficit is expected to be more than $200 billion in 2009. And McCain's tax cuts will add billions more to future deficits unless offset by spending cuts, which he so far has not been willing to identify. What would he cut?

A McCain adviser, former CBO chairman Douglas Holtz-Eakin, has said that McCain "will provide the leadership to achieve bipartisan spending restraint" and "will perform a comprehensive review of all programs, projects and activities of the federal government" to find programs to cut or eliminate. But that, of course, will come after people have cast their votes.

McCain said Obama would “close” markets to trade but the facts are Obama said he wants to renegotiate NAFTA to strengthen environmental and labor provisions.
Obama has said he thinks it's unwise to repeal the trade deal, because to do so "would actually result in more job loss ... than job gains." And in a June interview with Fortune magazine, he stated that he didn’t plan on pulling out of NAFTA.

John McCain said “We must use all resources and develop all technologies necessary to rescue our economy from the damage caused by rising oil prices and restore the health of our planet.”

McCain's running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, ridiculed Obama for using similar high-sounding words:

Palin, Sept. 3: What does he actually seek to accomplish after he's done turning back the waters and healing the planet? That crack drew jeers and laughter. Perhaps Republicans see a distinction between "healing the planet" and "restoring” the health of our planet," but I don’t see it.

The republican spin machine is in overdrive with only weeks before the election that will define America for the next 4 years. They may feed you a line of Bullcrap but we don’t have to swallow it.

source http://www.factcheck.org

Peace and Liberty through intelligence, strength and integrity.

Who Says Bush Isn’t a Socialist.

2008-07-18T13:02:00.000-07:00

Mike Chavers is on a rant about how every time some rich SOB CEO decides to run their business into the ground the working-man has to pick up the tab.

Last weekend Henry Paulson the Treasury Secretary appointed by Bush and the former head of the Goldman Sachs investment house announced that Bush /Cheney would ask congress to bail out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Now I know this sounds like a simple case of getting a hooker and her John out of jail but no, Fannie and Freddie were founded as a government agency in 1938 as part of FDR's New Deal to provide ready cash to the mortgage market to make loans for home loans.

Read the rest at OPEd News

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Who-Says-Bush-Isn-t-A-Soci-by-Michael-Chavers-080717-435.html

My open letter to Obama

2008-07-11T05:25:00.000-07:00

With friends like these who needs enemies? Senator Obama have you been taken over by the body snatcher pod of Bill Clinton.

As the candidate of change, you caved in on stopping the assault on the constitution. Looks like the same ole $#!T to me. Democrats afraid to look weak on national security.

Senator Obama when I saw your first speech on TV I was inspired. I thought here is a man who will take on the corrupt system and restore the rule of law. I don’t want to have to vote for the least worst candidate again.

Senator Obama, you voted for a FISA bill that'll make it difficult to hold the Bush administration responsible for its illegal wiretapping program.
Though champions of the constitution like Senators Dodd and Feingold stood strong, you failed the constitution and voted for the faulty bill.

Senator Obama will you show that nobody is above the law and come out now and promise to hold the administration accountable if you win? Will you commit to a full investigation if you become President?

True patriots have worked tirelessly over the last few years to put an end to warrantless wiretapping and demand accountability for those who have broken the law and violated the Constitution. Together we've held vigils and sent hundreds of thousands of messages to Congress. In the last few weeks alone, Patriots made thousands of phone calls to the Senate—and the Obama campaign.

Your vote Senator Obama is a real disappointment. The bill passed will make it harder to hold the Bush administration accountable. The "telecom immunity" clause basically blocks ongoing lawsuits against the telephone companies that carried out the administration's illegal wiretapping program. Those lawsuits were one of our best hopes for finding out what actually happened.

Americans who love their liberty want those who violate the Constitution to see dire consequences; that's a core American value and a winning position for the election. This along with your strong stands on healthcare, the energy crisis and ending the war can help you win in November.

It's not too late for you Senator Obama, to promise full accountability if you become president. There are still other avenues, from independent investigations to the Inspector General's office. The question is, will you Senator Obama commit to using these other avenues?

This fight is so important because it strikes at the heart of accountability in our democracy. No president should be able to willfully break the law, and then count on his successor to simply ignore any wrongdoing.

Letting the Bush administration completely off the hook would send a signal to future presidents that they can do whatever they please, without consequence. In this country, no person and certainly no president should be above the law.

Peace and Liberty through intelligence, strength, and integrity.

Write your own letter and send it here.

http://my.barackobama.com/page/s/contact2

Why we will be paying $5 dollars a gallon for gas and how we can get back control.

2008-06-19T15:05:00.000-07:00

Why we will be paying $5 dollars a gallon for gas and how we can get back control.

Most Americans I know are resigned to the fact that the price of gas is going to hit 5 dollars sooner than later. How did we get to this and what can we do about it?

Pitiful attempts to get your votes by suspending the federal gas tax was the McCain answer. While our Nation is at war and running the largest deficit in history they wanted to take the only thing in the price of gas that actually benefits the American public. The gas tax is to be used in building infrastructure, which is sorely needed.

I am not some communist who wants to nationalize the oil companies or refineries or even unfairly tax their profits. I am however absolutely opposed to giving big business huge tax breaks so that they can price gouge us into the poor house.

When W took office remember his MANTRA, privatize, deregulation, trickle down economics. Well that has served us well, or maybe I should say served them well. The number one purpose of the CORPORATION is to make as much money as legally possible and many times as illegally as possible. Most CORPORATIONS couldn’t care less their impact on you and me. I am not an expert in commodities trading so I am not going to try to get into the intricate details just the generalities.

Here goes, there is a regulatory loophole allows hedge funds along with institutional investors to control unlimited quantities of oil contracts. Some say these speculators control as much as 60% of the oil contracts.

With the deregulation the CFTC has exempted investment banks upon the limit speculative buying and overseas markets. Also the CFTC staff has been cut to its lowest levels since its creation, so there is little oversight. If you control the volume of oil available you can manipulate the price. This is what is going on right now.

The first thing that needs to be done is to not elect John McCain because he is married to the beast and I don’t mean Cindy. Then we need to close the loopholes created by W’s gang of thieves and staff the CFTC so that they can enforce the laws against price manipulation and maybe even as we see in the news today put a few of these SOB’s in jail.

Peace and Liberty through intelligence, strength, and integrity

FISA (the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act)

2008-06-19T12:52:00.000-07:00

These guys never give up trying to get their pals out of hot water.

FISA (the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) has been in place for 30 years and has dictated the necessary and appropriate ways for U. S. Law enforcement to collect intelligence on its own citizens for the sake of national security.

The Phone companies broke the law when they handed over information on US citizens to this whacked out administration without search warrants, violating the Second Amendment of our constitution protecting us from unreasonable search and seizure.

In February 2008 the House of Representatives did its job and rejected the Bush / Cheney FISA “reform” proposals there by protecting our Constitution but now the Senate is getting ready to give W’s pals in the Telecom immunity for breaking the law.

Senator Kit Bond. R(MO), is now proposing a complete revamping of FISA. He wants to strip us of our rights by including unlimited warrantless wiretapping for the executive branch for the next six years, without any meaningful judicial oversight. It also grants retroactive immunity to the telecom companies that broke the law and handed over our records to King George and is lackeys.

We have to speak out LOUD & CLEAR and reject this shameful legislation. If the House will keep their backbone and stay with their current version of FISA, in order for the government to spy on you they will have to get a warrant and have just cause to gather information from your phone conversations and emails. That is what our founders knew to be the right way to keep us safe from oppressive tyrants who would use this to quell dissent.

Write, call, fax, or visit your congressman and tell him if they vote for Senator Bond’s catastrophic FISA compromise when it come to the house that they will not have your support or vote this November.

Tell your friends and family or anybody that will listen to reject this compromise of our freedom and keep the Telecom industry and your government officials liable for their actions and do not grant immunity to lawbreakers. Congress stand strong on your February vote and stick with the current version of FISA

Feel free to use or alter my letter to send to your representative.

Find your congressman here

http://www.house.gov/

Congressman

I strongly urge you to stand strong on the House’s February vote on FISA. Stick with the current version of FISA and vote for the Constitution by voting against Senator Bond's catastrophic FISA "compromise" when it comes to the House.

Sincerely,

Peace and Liberty through intelligence, strength, and integrity.

Stop Big Media from dismantling media ownership limits.

2008-06-06T10:09:00.000-07:00

Just imagine if Dick Cheney owned several major newspapers, TV and Radio Networks!!!

Still thinking? You know what you would get non-stop neo-convict propaganda the likes of Faux News a la Rupert Murdoch. The old media ownership rules prevented this from happening.

The Senate who once in a while gets some thing right, has passed a bipartisan resolution of disapproval that would nullify the Bush appointed FCC’s attempt to stop diversity in media ownership by dismantling longstanding media ownership limits.

Last December, the FCC voted to remove the “newspaper/broadcast cross-ownership” ban that prohibits one company from owning a broadcast station and the major daily newspaper in the same market. The resolution of disapproval (Senate Joint Resolution 28), introduced by Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.), would nullify the FCC’s new rules if passed by Congress and signed by the president. The House version of the resolution was introduced by Reps. Jay Inslee (D-Wash.) and Dave Reichert (R-Wash.) in March.

Already King George has decided to show how out of touch he is with the will of the American people and opposes the resolution and says he will veto it. George seems to like media outlets that will parrot his delusional agenda polluting our airwaves with the likes Glenn Beck, Bill O’Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coultergeist, etc, etc.

Don’t stand idly by and let Bush / Cheney undercut this bipartisan effort in congress and green light big media’s expansion.

Send a letter to your Congressman to stand with the Senate and overturn the FCC decision to allow more media consolidation.

Peace and Liberty through intelligence, strength, and integrity.

Feel free to use or alter my letter to send to your representative.
Find your congressman here
http://www.house.gov/

Congressman

I urge you to stand with the Senate’s bipartisan resolution of disapproval (Senate Joint Resolution 28), which would nullify the FCC’s new rules to allow greater media consolidation. The House version of the resolution was introduced by Reps. Jay Inslee (D-Wash.) and Dave Reichert (R-Wash.) in March.

Consolidation has brought us to the point where two corporations control 70 percent of market revenue in an average radio market. While I respect the free market, it should be the role of government to stand between corporations and consumers when the public interest is at stake.

Relaxing restrictions does not serve the people just the big corporations. Local media must remain local, diverse and free.

McCain Too Old????

2008-06-04T14:47:00.000-07:00

"Did you hear about this?

Two State Department employees were fired -- this is a bit of a scandal -- because they were looking at Barack Obama's passport file.

Not only that, but the same person was also looking at John McCain's Civil War records."

Who knows when the Clintons will throw in the towel but I am going to stick with some humor for now because the nastiness is about to start.

Just watch fox in the AM. I did today and they were slamming NBC for having Keith Olbermann covering the election returns. They said he was bias and called NBC the New Barack Channel.

I think everyone has it right when they call the Fox News “FAUX NEWS”. They are the last ones on the entire world of media who should complain about bias.

That being said I think they are right. Keith Olbermann should be left as a progressive commentator not a news person like Tom Brokaw, or Dan Rather. The reason Keith Olbermann was on though is because he will raise ratings and NBC is under the GE banner and we all know what GE is about and that is profit and profit only.

One of the most important issues of the coming years will be media control and access. We must limit the control of large media conglomerates on the information we get if we are to remain a free people.

If you are concerned with these issues there are some progressive sites that will give you current information on issues regarding truth in media and legislation that is going before congress.

www.freepress.net

www.mediamatters.org

Stay alert, search for the truth, and take back America.

Peace and Liberty through intelligence, strength, and integrity.

P.S. thanks for the pict BEE

May your sacrifice always honor peace and liberty.

2008-05-26T05:35:00.000-07:00

We will remember your sacrifice

George Bush can’t even spell appeasement

2008-05-16T10:52:00.000-07:00

It seems that the sorry excuse of a president, George W can go over to Israel and label democrats as in favor of appeasement of terrorists. For the first time, I somewhat agree with the Neanderthal in the White House.

The Democrats are guilty of appeasing the terrorist Neo-Convicts who have all but worn out our armed forces, bankrupted the country, and has all but shredded the Constitution in frenzy of eroding the rights of every citizen of the United States.
The president said:
“Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along,” said Bush, in what White House aides privately acknowledged was a reference to calls by Obama and other Democrats for the U.S. president to sit down for talks with leaders like Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
“We have heard this foolish delusion before,” Bush said in remarks to the Israeli Knesset. “As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American Senator declared: ‘Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.’ We have an obligation to call this what it is — the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.”
The Neo-Convicts are trying to hold onto power by fear mongering again. The Vote for us or die tactics are falling short of the success though. Even the conglomerate news media is attacking this logic. McCain is already fear mongering labeling Obama as the Hamas candidate of choice. I can’t wait for all the crap we will get from the Faux News channel and the Ditto Head himself.
Obama responded immediately and said “It is sad that President Bush would use a speech to the Knesset on the 60th anniversary of Israel’s independence to launch a false political attack,” Obama said in the statement his aides distributed. “George Bush knows that I have never supported engagement with terrorists, and the president’s extraordinary politicization of foreign policy and the politics of fear do nothing to secure the American people or our stalwart ally Israel.”
All of the Glenn Beck’s, Bill O’Reilly’s, Rush Limbaugh’s, Sean Hannity’s, Kevin James and Ann Coultergeist’s of the neo-convicts will fear monger and try to sway your vote to the side of fascism.
Fortunately there is some sanity not Hannity on some of the networks. On Hardball with Chris Matthews he took the Neo-Convict radio talk host Kevin James to the mat when he appeared on Hardball to give the Obama is an appeaser side of the story.
Kevin James showed that he is just a parrot and repeats neo-convict talking points without understanding the words coming out of his mouth. He actually had no idea of what the actual appeasement of Neville Chamberlain to Nazi Germany was. He started pumping up his volume and tried to change the subject but Matthews was relentless and in the end James finally admits he doesn’t have a clue and was just as Rush would say dittoing the president who quite frankly probably didn’t know what Chamberlain did to appease the Nazi’s either.

Here is a history lesson for the dunder heads who parrot the likes of Bush and his other neo-convicts on history. This is the very short version and any Library has books on this and many other facts that this administration seems not to get.

Here goes, the Nazi’s were behind the assassination of the Chancellor of Austria, Engelbert Dollfuss and pressured for the annexation of Austria which England and France agreed to. The second crisis came over the Sudetenland area of Czechoslovakia, which was home to a large German minority. The Munich Agreement, engineered by the French and British governments, effectively allowed Adolf Hitler to annex the country's defensive frontier, leaving its industrial and economic core within a day's reach of the Wehrmacht. In March of 1939 Hitler invaded Poland then swallowed the rest of Czechoslovakia and WWII began.

If you are a talk show host and you start talking history you should at least know of what you speak I say Kevin James is the Neo-Dick of the week.

Peace and Liberty through intelligence, strength, and integrity.

A New Stadium for the Rays ???

2008-05-15T11:54:00.000-07:00

The St. Petersburg City Council is having a hearing on the proposed new waterfront stadium being proposed for the Rays baseball team.

I for one am totally against building a new stadium in the downtown waterfront area for the following reasons.

Cost Issues
The ballpark is estimated to cost half a billion dollars and the rays only want to put up 150 million. Services are being cut fire and police etc so How exactly do the Rays intend to pay for the ballpark? How much will taxpayers be asked to kick in? The Rays will pump millions of $ for ads to support the stadium!!!!

Will the voters get to decide the issue?

Traffic Problems -- 80 days a year parking problems and traffic gridlock!!

Huge environmental impact...

What happens to marine life if part of Tampa Bay is filled in?

To fit the giant stadium where Al Lang is now, the Rays plan to dredge and fill the Bay to make more room. They plan to dump the equivalent of 1 foot concrete blocks stacked over 25 miles high into the Bay right near a freshwater spring that supports federally endangered manatee and seagrass beds. This will take several acres of the Bay and turn it into land. Because the Basin is too shallow for the thousands of cubic yards of dirt to be barged in, expect to see hundreds of dump trucks driving through our downtown City streets for months.

Bad for Business

They say the stadium is good for business but what is likely is that all the other people (you know, the tens of thousands who aren't going to the game) will stay away from our downtown area on game days because they won't want to deal with all the traffic, let alone looking for a place to park. The result? A sharp decline in business. Couple that with the increased competition from all the NEW businesses at the redeveloped Trop site and you can see why this would really hurt current downtown business owners.

Secrecy and Fairness Concerns.

The city knew about this plan for over a year even during the last elections. Yet the public was kept in the dark until late November (and even then only after the story was leaked to the St. Pete Times). What’s more, the bidding process has proceeded in a way that is only fair to one developer: Hines.

Better Alternatives

Tropicana Field is downtown already!! Why not redevelop the existing site?
Another, simpler, alternative would be to build structured parking to the West of the Dome and develop everything East of Booker Creek, without building a replacement stadium. The existing stadium could be updated to some extent.

I like having the Rays in St. Petersburg. What I don’t like is this issue being railroaded down on the people of St. Petersburg. There are better alternatives than a waterfront ballpark so let’s tell the City of St. Petersburg to come up with another plan that will not cut services and harm the environment or our existing businesses.

Peace and Liberty through intelligence, strength, and integrity.

The Gas Tax Exploitation Scam

2008-05-02T09:54:00.000-07:00

Ms. Clinton and Mr. McCain are in favor of suspending the 18.4 cent per gallon federal from Memorial Day to Labor Day. What genius, what political courage this took. Gee wiz right before the election. Do ya think these morons really think that this is going to give us a real break? The average American family would save 18 dollars a car.

Actually if you think about it, and most politicians don’t want the people to start thinking, the federal tax on gas is about the only thing that doesn’t get me angry about buying gas. It has stayed the same since 1994 so figure in the cost of inflation it has shrunk in terms of what the government can do with the money, but this money actually is the one component of the per-gallon cost that comes back to benefit the public. It funds road and bridge construction and repair. Most of the rest leaves this country and goes to fund the golden toilets of the king in Saudi Arabia and to Bush’s best buddy Hugo Chavez in Venezuela.

So let’s see they are giving us 6 to 12 hundred dollars back that they will tax us on next year add another 36 dollars on gas tax and does that really spell relief???
Alas one senator, by the way who is also running for president, says hey now, that’s not relief, that is exploiting the issue for short-term political advantage. Mr. Obama refuses to play politics on this issue. He said "It's not an idea to get you through the summer," he said. "It's an idea to get them through an election."
His opponents no doubt hope that Mr. Obama's stand will prove to be political suicide. I think it should qualify as political courage. Something that has been lacking in the halls of government for too long.

We have the largest deficit in history our foreign debt is out of control and Mr. McCain wants to be in Iraq for a hundred years, Ms Clinton wants to raise the taxes on the oil company’s profits, and who will pay for that in the end. WE WILL.
So America wake up and don’t buy it, don’t take it anymore. Tell Congress this. To paraphrase the lyrics of a song, we ain’t no chickens and we don’t need your feed. Your cash ain’t nothin but trash. Give us real solutions!!!! Give us a well thought out, sustainable energy policy that will finally break the strangle hold on this country’s reliance on foreign oil.

Peace and Liberty through intelligence, strength, and integrity.

Just how relevant is Reverend Wright.

2008-04-29T14:10:00.000-07:00

Just how relevant is Reverend Wright.

I am so sick the media attention to the newest star Huckster Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Just how relevant to fixing this country problems is Reverend Wright. The great so called God fearing Black crusader who now is going to exploit this rift with Obama to peddle his upcoming book no one would have read until now.

Pay attention people, this is just another smoke screen to blind people from seeing the real issues that matter.

Just look at who McCain is kissing ass for, John Hagee. John McCain, naturally, is "very proud to have Pastor John Hagee’s support." Meanwhile, Hagee seems to hate Catholics about as much as Jews and Muslims quite a bit more so. McCain has a lot to be proud of. I wonder what McCain really stands for because McCain has changed so many of the positions he has held in the past just to get the vote of the far right.

If you wonder whose butt Hillary is kissing, just stick it out there she’ll kiss it for a delegate.

Obama is the only candidate so far that has not gone negative first. He has defended his positions when attacked and admitted that he did not agree with all that reverend Wright has said in the past, and admits that it is something that he needed to clarify his position on.

When they start talking about the real issues, issues that matter for the future of this Nation, that’s when you will get my attention again candidates.

Now listen Mr. McCain, Ms. Clinton, and Mr. Obama. I don’t care about your preacher, spiritual advisor, whether or not you’re white, black, gray, or gay, male or female, whether or not you where born to a foreign daddy or born in a canal zone. Let’s get real let’s start talking real issues that are going decide the future course of America. Who has the best ideas, who will end the strangle hold of corporate America over the congress and president of this great nation.

Let’s start talking about how we are going to end this mess in Iraq without starting WWIII.

Let’s start talking about how we are going to sustain social security. The government uses the surplus that has come into the treasury from the FICA in your pay check tax since the 1980’s to fund all the earmarked pork barreling, misguided military adventures and the missile shield star wars that have enriched the military industrial complex and bankrupted the nation.

Let’s start talking about how we are going to create real sustainable renewable energy projects not lowering gas prices.

Let’s start talking about what Americas roll in foreign affairs should be. Can we really be the world’s policeman any longer?

Let’s start talking about ways to fix our economy and set up sustainable import export policies that will protect our jobs and national security instead of throwing six hundred dollars at me like a rich man gives a crack whore as he tells her to get out of his Lexus and have a nice life.

Let’s start talking about how America should conduct itself to the rule of law and human rights. Ending the torture of prisoners and closing down the detention center at Guantanamo Bay would be a good place to start.

Let’s start talking about what we are going to do about our porous boarders and what should be done about illegal immigration.

Let’s start talking about restoring the power to the congress and repairing the damage done to our liberty by Bush and Co. so we don’t end up with another demagogue in the White House, who will use fear mongering to strip your constitutional rights away in the name of security.

Let’s start talking about what we are going to do about the corporate control of the media.

LET’S START TALKING REAL ISSUES!!!

Peace and Liberty through intelligence, strength, and integrity.

Who will we choose as a leader

2008-04-18T12:01:00.000-07:00

Who will we choose as a leader

I was reading an article today about the importance of who we choose as a leader to end this moral & economic ruination of our nation. What she had to say is worth reading. What we base our decision on will reflect how the path that the Nation will follow for the next four years.

What will you base your decision on? Will you vote for McCain because he is a so called war hero? McCain’s heroism comes from his activity in Vietnam. He no doubt was courageous in captivity, but the war itself was immoral.

What the Republican Party will try to do, is use war heroism to confuse the American people into continuing unjust wars and supporting their architects with the honor of brave soldiers.
Nixon used this same tactic in 1968 and by calling Democrats as too weak to STAY THE COURSE.

McCain is playing the war hero card for sure in this the most important election in recent history. If the Democrats are to win the presidency and seats in congress they better dispel the war hero myth and engage the republicans about war and war heroes.

Soldiers in both unjust and just wars may be heroes if you just look at the personal courage and self sacrifice in a battle. The trick is and the Republican leadership will put a smoke screen over this, so we must know that those who oppose a preemptive unnecessary war are also heroes.

It took great courage to stand in the halls of congress and speak against the call to war as Senator Robert Byrd (S.WV.) did in March of 2003 before King George and his cable of cretins rushed to war to steal Iraqi oil.

It is easy to make war, strike out and destroy, but it is hard to be a peacemaker that will negotiate and settle differences and build a lasting peace. In my life the ultimate moral force in the world is the peace hero one who will not stand for evil or injustice.

Catherine Crier wrote in her article CHOOSING A LEADER

“During this contentious political season, we are called upon to judge the character of the candidates. Who should lead the nation, the fighter or the war hero? Who best wears their patriotism on their sleeve (or lapel)? Who can throw or take the biggest punch, swig the strongest shot, or bowl the highest game?

When the American Film Institute took a vote on the greatest American film hero of the last century, the winner was not Rambo, Rocky or a John Wayne cowboy. Instead it was Atticus Finch; gentle, bookish, moral, yet tough to his core. He never proclaimed his authority or postured for effect. He simply acted on his principles, with bravery and integrity, leaving no doubt who the real leader was. This might not be a bad model for the next occupant of the White House.”

http://news.yahoo.com/s/huffpost/20080418/cm_huffpost/097352;_ylt=ApeL23AAzZdbl4cNWQ7b5bP9wxIF

Who fits this mold the best, McCain, Clinton, or Obama.

Peace and Liberty through intelligence, strength, and integrity.

The Senate FISA Bill is coming up soon contact you Senators and tell them you want accountability.

2008-04-15T11:52:00.000-07:00

The Senate FISA Bill is coming up soon contact you Senators and tell them you want accountability.

Last month the fear monger who still illegally occupies the White House, tried to bluff his way into getting the House to grant immunity to the Telecom industry for illegally spying on American citizens.

Enough of you patriots out there said enough is enough and told your congressmen to stand up and protect the 4th Amendment to the Constitution. You told them that we want protection from the government spying and data mining of innocent Americans.

Now in the words of a great American Elmer Fudd “that wascally wabbit is up to no good again” and he will pressure the Senate to fix the bill so that his pals at Verizon won’t be liable for their irresponsible and illegal act of just handing over our privacy to the administration of this imperial president just because he wants it.

All you free Americans need to put the pressure on the Senate not to cave in the King George W and join with Senators Patrick Leahy, and Congressman John Conyers. Demand that your Senators support the strong and balanced FISA legislation that the House Passed in March 2008.

My Democratic Senator Bill Nelson’s staff told me when the Senate last voted on the FISA bill, that he did not support immunity for the telecoms, but then voted for it anyway. These guys must be watched closely and held accountable when they try to dismantle the Constitution.

I urge everyone that values freedom to contact your Senators and Demand they support the House’s FISA bill.

With all the smoke and mirrors flashing across your TV, the mud slinging democrats and the free ride McCain gets from the press. This lame duck administration will try to get all of their agenda passed into law before they slither out of the White House and crawl back under the rocks they came from.

Here is a letter that I will be sending to my Senators. Please feel free to use it or alter it to your liking but send it by email, fax, and call your Senators and tell them how you feel.

You can find your Senator here.

http://www.senate.gov/

Dear Senator,

I urge you to support the fair FISA bill passed by the House of Representatives in March.

Any new FISA legislation must be strong and balanced, protecting America's national security while defending civil liberties -- without granting retroactive immunity to phone companies. Retroactive immunity would abet the Bush-Cheney Administration's efforts to avoid accountability for its actions.

The House's FISA bill strikes the appropriate balance. That's why I strongly support the FISA bill passed by the House in March, and why I'm urging you as my Senator to support the House's legislation as well.

Sincerely,
Your name
Your address

Peace and Liberty through intelligence, strength, and integrity.

Robert Byrd was one of the Senate's most outspoken critics of the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

2008-04-15T11:48:00.000-07:00

I saw the speech Senator Robert Byrd made to the Senate before the Iraq invasion. Too bad Senator Clinton wasn’t listening that day. Maybe her vote to go to war would have been different.

Senator Byrd is the longest serving U S Senator in our history. He was a member of the KKK and was one of the most prominent Dixiecrats of the 60’s.

He has changed his views of civil rights over the years. He was one of the few brave lawmakers who had the nerve to stand up to the cable of cretins led this country into the debacle in Iraq.

In a speech on March 13TH 2008 he stated:

"If the United States leads the charge to war in the Persian Gulf, we may get lucky and achieve a rapid victory. But then we will face a second war: a war to win the peace in Iraq. This war will last many years and will surely cost hundreds of billions of dollars. In light of this enormous task, it would be a great mistake to expect that this will be a replay of the 1991 war. The stakes are much higher in this conflict."

On March 19, 2003, when Bush ordered the invasion after receiving U.S. Congress approval, Byrd stated:

"Today I weep for my country. I have watched the events of recent months with a heavy, heavy heart. No more is the image of America one of strong, yet benevolent peacekeeper. The image of America has changed. Around the globe, our friends mistrust us, our word is disputed, our intentions are questioned. Instead of reasoning with those with whom we disagree, we demand obedience or threaten recrimination."

Byrd also criticized Bush for his speech declaring the "end of major combat operations" in Iraq, which Bush made on the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln. Byrd stated on the Senate floor:

"I do question the motives of a deskbound president who assumes the garb of a warrior for the purposes of a speech."

On October 17, 2003, Byrd delivered a speech expressing his concerns about the future of the nation and his unequivocal antipathy to Bush's policies. Referencing the Hans Christian Andersen children's tale The Emperor's New Clothes, Byrd said of the president: "the emperor has no clothes." Byrd further lamented the "sheep-like" behavior of the "cowed Members of this Senate" and called on them to oppose the continuation of a "war based on falsehoods."

Byrd criticized what he saw as the stifling of dissent: "The right to ask questions, debate, and dissent is under attack. The drums of war are beaten ever louder in an attempt to drown out those who speak of our predicament in stark terms. Even in the Senate, our history and tradition of being the world's greatest deliberative body is being snubbed. This huge spending bill - $87 billion - has been rushed through this chamber in just one month. There were just three open hearings by the Senate Appropriations Committee on $87 billion - $87 for every minute since Jesus Christ was born - $87 billion without a single outside witness called to challenge the administration's line." Finally, Byrd quoted Nazi leader Hermann Göring who stated that rushing to war is easy if the proponent of war portrays opponents as unpatriotic.

In July 2004, Byrd released the book Losing America: Confronting a Reckless and Arrogant Presidency about the Bush presidency and the war in Iraq. Of the more than 17,000 votes he has cast as a Senator, Byrd says he is proudest of his vote against the Iraq war resolution.

Maybe 2008 will be the year we vote in candidates that will serve our country instead of serving up our country to the war-profiteers.

Peace and Liberty through intelligence, strength, and integrity.

Does America have long to remain a democracy?

2008-04-11T09:18:00.000-07:00

Does America have long to remain a democracy?

As I watch the upcoming campaigns unfold I am thinking to myself will America remain a democracy? It almost seems like a diabolical conspiracy, that our education system has failed to educate our population how to be a good citizens through a good and intense civics education program.

Most people have very little knowledge on how our system of government works, and I see that most people don’t really care. That is obvious because when you look at the numbers, since 1960 – 2006 less than 55% of eligible voters vote in a presidential election and less than 41% vote in non-presidential federal elections.

Source http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0781453.html More people have voted for Amerika Idol.

We see scandal after scandal and until this very year, when they put in an independent ethics board to investigate corruption, no real ethics reform has ever passed into law.

We have let the politicians dismantle the Constitution. They have broken the antitrust laws that Teddy Roosevelt put in place to protect us, and now we have the oil companies making the energy policies and the 6 giant media corporations controlling the information we receive on the main stream sources.

We have allowed a Neo-convict to bamboozle the nation into an endless “war on terror” and let his pals at the war-profiteer store to empty out our treasury and put us into debt so far that it will take at least as many years as the Commander in Thief has been in office to get out if we do the right things.

We pass laws that dismantle our industrial manufacturing base like NAFTA, CAFTA and what ever. I wonder who will be building our ships, tanks, and aircraft soon.

I saw 2 quotes on another blog from a Scotsman named Alexander Tyler, a history professor from about the time that our constitution was written in 1787.

A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship.

The average age of the world's greatest civilizations from the beginning of history has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence:

· From bondage to spiritual faith;

· From spiritual faith to great courage;

· From courage to liberty;

· From liberty to abundance;

· From abundance to complacency;

· From complacency to apathy;

· From apathy to dependence;

· From dependence back into bondage.

I do see more people starting to wake up to what has been going on at the highest levels of government. Is it too late and too little though? This country will have to endure some hard times and it will be painful. The problem seems to be now that no one wants to be the ones who do the suffering.

Paying for this war should start when you begin the war not passed off to future generations. We need to become energy independent and that will be painful. We need to fix Social Security, health care, our crumbling infrastructure, education, the illegal immigration problem and many other issues that need real long term solutions not campaign mantras.

It seems as if Amerika has become the nation of the quick and easy fix. Everyone wants the payoff but not the work. We want knowledge and wisdom like Neo got it in the movie the Matrix. Plug in the USB to the brain and load the information up in 30 seconds. I don’t have the time to learn I have to watch the latest on Brittney, then I have to catch up on who fell down in dancing with the stars.

To fix the issues that matter, will be painful and anyone addressing these issues and doing real long term cures will probably only have one term to do it.

American democracy, is our time about up?

Peace and Liberty through intelligence, strength, and integrity.

McCain gets a free ride from the press.

2008-04-11T08:55:00.000-07:00

While the democrats tear each other apart in the news each night, the press seems to give our Republican candidate for president the free pass. You can’t even read a story about McCain without hearing him called a “maverick.”

Maverick

NOUN: One that refuses to abide by the dictates of or resists adherence to a group; a dissenter.

ADJECTIVE: Being independent in thought and action or exhibiting such independence: maverick politicians; a maverick decision.

According to Media Matters McCain was called a maverick more than 1,300 times in print and on television. I don’t know about you but someone who sticks with his party line 80% of the time is hardly a maverick. The times that he has bucked his party line was with issues that were very popular with the majority of the public so he was not taking any political risks.

McCain has been referred to be a moderate despite the fact that both his McCain himself and his voting record proves that he is a neo-con. McCain voted for cutting federal funding of family planning clinics that counseled women on abortion. He has opposed federal hate crimes legislation, the establishment of the International Criminal Court, the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, pro-labor legislation, ergonomics rules, lawsuits against gun manufacturers, and benefits for gay partners. He has supported privatizing Social Security, conservative judicial appointments, the teaching of intelligent design in public schools, tax cuts for the wealthy, and the posting of the Ten Commandments in public schools.

His claim to be a straight talker but McCain has been all things to all people. McCain used to describe Jerry Falwell as an agent of intolerance but after he decided to make another run for president he publicly embraced Falwell back in 2006. It seems like someone needs a favor from the religious conservatives.

He has flipped on many issues such as tax cuts for the wealthy he opposed in 2001 he is now in favor of when he needs to appeal to the conservative base. McCain also once said on abortion, I would not support repeal of Roe vs. Wade." And yet he had also told an anti-choice group in a letter, "I share our common goal of reducing the staggering number of abortions currently performed in this country and overturning the Roe vs. Wade decision". Today, his website reads, "John McCain believes Roe v. Wade is a flawed decision that must be overturned."

When he ran for president in 2000, he skipped the Iowa caucus, and made clear his contempt for ethanol made from Iowa corn. "Ethanol does nothing to reduce fuel consumption, nothing to increase our energy independence, nothing to improve our air quality," he said in 2003. Yet in 2008, he decided to compete in the Iowa caucus, and had a change of heart on ethanol. "I do not support subsidies, but I support ethanol and I think it is a vital alternative energy source, not only because of our dependence on foreign oil but because of its greenhouse reduction effects," he said in August 2006.

The squeaky clean McCain has his own whitewater with his involvement in the Keating Five. Back in early 1987, at the beginning of his first Senate term, McCain attended two meetings with federal banking regulators to discuss an investigation into Lincoln Savings and Loan, an Irvine, Calif., thrift owned by Arizona developer Charles Keating. Federal auditors were investigating Keating's banking practices, and Keating, fearful that the government would seize his S&L, sought intervention from a number of U.S. senators. At Keating's behest, four senators--McCain and Democrats Dennis DeConcini of Arizona, Alan Cranston of California, and John Glenn of Ohio--met with Ed Gray, chairman of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, on April 2. Those four senators and Sen. Don Riegle, D-Mich., attended a second meeting at Keating's behest on April 9 with bank regulators in San Francisco.

Regulators did not seize Lincoln Savings and Loan until two years later. The Lincoln bailout cost taxpayers $2.6 billion, making it the biggest of the S&L scandals. In addition, 17,000 Lincoln investors lost $190 million.

The news media would also have you believe that McCain doesn’t tell people what they want to hear but makes decisions based not on what’s good politics but on what’s right. The press presents John McCain as unwavering in principle, and propped up by endless political courage and would never pander for a vote.

Consider his decision in 2000 to denounce the Confederate flag flying over the south Carolina statehouse but when the primary approached, he said that the flag was a symbol of heritage.

In recent months, McCain has backtracked on his positions on immigration and taxes, with an eye toward pleasing the conservative base, any other politician who tried a similar gambit would be criticized for such blatant pandering. But for John McCain, the rules are different.

Maybe after they pick the winner of the Democratic primary we will get to see the real John McCain.

Peace and Liberty through intelligence, strength, and integrity.

Iraq is in a helluva mess

2008-04-11T08:23:00.000-07:00

There is no military solution to a problem like that in Iraq.”General David Petraeus
Commanding General, Multi-National Force Iraq
March 2007
***

“The fact is, this president never listened to the soldiers
on the ground. The problem is not just a military problem.
It is a political problem and a diplomatic problem.”General Wesley Clark (ret.)
Former Supreme Allied Commander, Europe
May 2007
***

“[America is] not making the progress
we need to be making [in Iraq].”
General John Abizaid (ret.)
Former Commander, United States Central Command
October 2007
***

“Iraq is in a helluva mess.”James A. Baker III
Former U.S. Secretary of State
October 2006
A RESPONSIBLE PLAN TO END THE WAR IN IRAQ

A political race or race in politics

2008-03-26T12:37:00.000-07:00

A political race or race in politics.

Yes ladies and gents there is still racism in the United States of America. It is more subdued than in the past but it is there so let’s quit pretending that we are all above it.

I believe it is a human condition to be suspicious of people different from us or unfamiliar to our tribe. The more like us strangers are, the more we will accept them and vice versa. I think this is a survival instinct. We as humans have a capacity to reason though and therein lies the difference between us and animals.

As this political campaign gets ugly, Clinton is trying to bully her way into the nomination. Subtly using the logic, unspoken but there that Obama will lose to McCain because the independents will vote for a white woman before a black man.

Obama’s ex-pastor Mr. Wright gave controversial sermons. So did Jesus. He said God Damn America, and given his experience of living in an era of extreme prejudice, I can listen to the sermon and not be upset. As far as his sermon about September 11th 2001 I didn’t hear him saying the U.S. deserved such a vicious attack, what I hear him addressing are the root causes of the attacks nor is he alone in his beliefs.

Reverend Wright’s fire and brimstone style is easily distorted especially when you take it out of context. Wright makes repeated reference to America’s ruling power structure, which I don’t know about the rest of you out there, but the people who make the laws of this country are neither poor nor non-white and have very little in common with the average American.

Condemning Obama though, for his association with Pastor Wright is wrong. Obama has stated that Wright’s comments are not in keeping with his values and that is that. So Hillary get off your high horse before he rolls over on you. You are becoming the bad guy in a rigged wrestling match. As the ref is watching your evil manager Bill climb into the ring, you reach into your bag of tricks and throw sand in our face and try to win the match.

It seems that you realize that you can’t win but are trying to throw the Democratic Party under the bus, so that after four more years of Republican ruination, in 2012 you will be the savior of America and will be elected Queen.

Senator Clinton stop playing the subtle race card and gracefully get out of the race. Begin to help this country by supporting a man who I believe will unite this country. Stop playing politics and become a real patriot and help America recover from the disaster of the Bush / Cheney regime.

Peace and Liberty through intelligence, strength, and integrity.

Dick “Head” Cheney tells Amerika to F#ck OFF

2008-03-25T09:25:00.000-07:00

Dick “Head” Cheney tells Amerika to F#(k OFF

So!!!!!!!!!

Four thousand dead American soldiers, thousands more wounded, thousands more will suffer post traumatic stress for the rest of their lives. Millions of Iraqi’s displaced hundreds of thousands killed, or maimed for life.

The U S Military at its breaking point, the country bankrupt, jobs evacuating this country like rats off a sinking ship, real adversaries becoming stronger and Americas strength is oozing out like blood from a severed artery.

Corporations are making obscene profits and paying its CEO hundreds of times what the average worker makes, from the blood of our troops. International cooperation and opinion of America is at an all time low.

Civil liberties abused or removed from our constitution. We have an administration that meets in secret back rooms and only listens to its corporate pal’s covers its tracks by deleting emails that by law are public records.

Sunday on ABC, white house correspondent Martha Raddatz asked Dick to respond to the statement that “two-thirds of Americans say it’s not worth fighting”

Dick said “So”

Let me translate for you.

F**K YOU America!!!!!!

Where is the outrage? For the past 15 months the Democrats have had the power to pull the purse strings and end the occupation of Iraq. We know these guys have committed impeachable offences. Why are these SOB’s still in office and out of jail??

Thomas Jefferson with eloquent simplicity wrote, "A democratic society depends upon an informed and educated and involved citizenry."

So everybody either get informed, educate yourself (because corporate media doesn’t cut it anymore) and get involved. Our democracy depends on it!!!!

Peace and Liberty through intelligence, strength, and integrity.

This week March 23rd Josh Nelms & Mike Chavers will be on WTAN 1340 AM Radio

2008-03-22T05:57:00.000-07:00

This week March 23rd Josh Nelms & Mike Chavers will be on WTAN 1340 AM Radio

Mike Chavers will be playing music on WTAN 1340 Live and in person Sunday Night March 23rd 2008 at 11:59pm EST, with the station hosts Jonathan Sands & Jim Mortellaro, featuring Josh Nelms, in the 2nd of a series of live broadcasts by local artists here in the Tampa Bay area. We will be taking Live calls so talk to us.

We have the Likes of Jimmy Griswold, Josh Nelms, Sandy Atkinson, Robin Rothwell, Peter Merrigan and Charlie Morris just to mention a few who will be appearing in future broadcasts.

If any of you songwriters out there are interested in appearing on the Sunday program send me an email.

If your business is in need of a plug, drop me an email and Jon and Jim will get their rate schedule out to you. It’s really inexpensive to advertise on WTAN.

To listen to the show click on the WTAN internet radio link.
http://www.internet-ad.com/wtan1.asx

Jonathan Sands web site
http://radiobullseye.blogspot.com/

Saturday March 22ND 2008

Mike Chavers is playing with Tommy McCoy at Central Station Saturday March 15th 2008 which is located in the last strip mall on 107th St. before the Belmar on Treasure Island. It used to be Nick’s Sea breeze and has a new owner. We start early at 8pm so come on out and hear some new tunes from Tommy’s New CD.

Sunday March 23RD 2008

Mike Chavers is playing with Deje Groove at Coconuts Comedy Club, 2950 Gulf to Bay Blvd, Clearwater, FL 33759 from 7:30 to 11:30. We are featuring Jerry Chase on the drums and vocals, Tommy McCoy on guitar and vocals. This is an open jam so bring your ax and come on down and party with the band.

Josh Nelms and I will be hauling ass to get over to the station after the gig so doesn’t forget to tune in and hear some music and road stories.

Turn off the TV and come on and see some live music.
Bluesfuly yours
Mike Chavers
http://mikechavers.blogspot.com/

Read articles by Mike Chavers and many other writers at OpEd News.
http://www.opednews.com/author/author7762.html

Anniversary of the Worst Foreign Policy Disaster In Our History

2008-03-19T13:28:00.000-07:00

Anniversary of the Worst Foreign Policy Disaster In Our History

While the Democrats snipe at each other over similar platforms, and the Republican candidate can’t remember who the enemy is, the anniversary of America’s most disastrous foreign policy mistake fast approaches.

It was this week on March 20th 2003, when the smug and cocky George “Worst president ever” Bush and Dick “Head” Cheney decided against good military advice, to rain bombs on and destroy the infrastructure of Iraq and open a Pandora’s Box of perilous times for this Nation. This was the beginning of a preventative war that was unnecessary and what will serve as Bush’s pathetic legacy.

Saddam Hussein as we now know had no part in the September 11th 2001 attacks on the WTC and Pentagon, he possessed no weapons of mass destruction, and he posed no great threat to the security of the United States.

Now what to do have in Iraq? We deposed and executed a brutal despot, but in the process destabilized Iraq. Then we opened the door for al-Qaeda terrorists to establish a foothold in a country where they could not have operated under Saddam. We destabilized the entire region by emboldening Iraq’s most dangerous enemy Iran.

We are now involved in an occupation of Iraq and the majority of the Iraqi people don’t want us there. The majority of Americans at home are calling for an end to this madness and for our troops to return home.

Levels of violence had dropped during the surging of another 30 to 50 thousand troops sent to the Iraq but now that violence is starting to spike up with more suicide bombings in Baghdad this week.

So now that we will have a new administration in less than a year how do we end this quagmire that spills American and Iraqi blood daily and bankrupts this country. So far none of the three remaining candidates has a satisfactory plan to that.

So far Clinton and Obama have spent more time on telling us who voted for the war than how they plan to end it. Ok Hillary you were spineless and rubber stamped the Bush plan, without doing the research and Obama you weren’t able to vote one way or the other because you were not in the senate yet but you did not support the war but did not have the pressure of being bullied to go along by the GOP.

McCain’s plan is more of the same war without regard to how we are going to pay for it, and how to stabilize the region. Just American troops as targets for the roadside bombs and American tax dollars to the war profiteers.

None of the candidates that I can see has a credible plan to proceed? Rigid timeline withdrawals will not help, and a blank check approach to this war is no longer an option either. The candidates need to begin talking about how America will proceed in world affairs after the Bush / Cheney regime is gone.

I want to live in a America that will:

No longer be in the business of preemptive wars and nation building.
No longer be in the business of torture.
No longer be in the business of kidnapping people and sending them to secret prisons.
No longer be in the business of propping up repressive regimes because they allow business to operate in their countries without regard for human rights.
No longer appoint incompetent yes men like FEMA’s “Heck of a job Brownie” or Secretary of Defense Donald Dumbsfield over qualified people who could do the job right.
No longer disregard the basic human rights that are in the Geneva Convention.
No longer disregard the Fourth Amendment and end unsupervised wiretapping of Americans.
No longer propose amendments to the Constitution to limit the rights of Americans on the basis of sexual orientation.
No longer allows a few giant media conglomerates to control the internet or the airwaves.
No longer depend on foreign oil.
No longer put corporate interests above American interests.
No longer run huge war deficits and cut taxes for the wealthiest individuals.

All right Mr. and Mrs. Candidate your turn to respond.
Peace and Liberty through intelligence, strength, and integrity.

It’s the Economy Stupid.

2008-03-14T11:24:00.001-07:00

Now that the news about the occupation of Iraq has almost stopped, the major news channels are devoting most of the time on New York’s naughty governor and the primaries instead of the real issues that are facing this country.

America is quickly becoming a second rate economic power, and the consequences are not going to be pretty to anybody that has to work for a living. The burden that NAFTA and other trade deals that hamstring US Businesses and labor must be reviewed by the next administration that takes power in 2009.

We have issues like “Open Trucking” where Mexican trucks are to be free to roam the USA and compete with the Teamsters. Some say it is just fair competition but that is a bunch of crap. First of all the Mexican truckers are non union drivers who are paid a fraction of what American drivers so how do our businesses compete? The Mexican trucks don’t have to have expensive road safety features like American trucks do. How do our businesses compete?

So if you have to work for a living and don’t make your money as a hedge fund manager the economy is a big issue and NAFTA is a word that means you have been sold out by CEO’s shipping your manufacturing job out of the U.S. to cheap labor nations like Mexico and China.

Now the numbers that Bush / Cheney will give you are "The Census Bureau data show that U.S. export growth was phenomenal in 2006, increasing by 14.5 percent. ... Exports to Europe increased by 15.2 percent and to China by nearly 32 percent. The growth in exports to Japan was a slower 7.5 percent, but it grew. Since 2001, U.S. exports have increased by more than 42 percent."

Now that looks impressive but just like the spin on the build of the intelligence that led to the war in Iraq, the administration conveniently left out the other half of the story.

In 2007 our trade deficit with Mexico grew by 16 percent to $73 Billion, a new record. Mexico ships more cars to America than America ships to the world. Now where did Mexico get the Auto Industry? I think maybe it was Enrique Ford.

If you think that is bad look at the trade deficit with China. It has grown to $256 Billion which happens to be the largest trade deficit ever between two nations.

Since the Bush / Cheney have taken power three million manufacturing jobs have disappeared to countries that have cheap labor. The U.S. trade deficit has doubled, and most alarming is the America is running a trade deficit in the advanced technology sector of more than $67 billion with China.

Bush said “free trade is essential to the creation of high paying quality jobs. “ Yes George but it is exports that create jobs and imports displace them. So sit down and pay attention W. We import over half a trillion dollars more in manufactured goods than we export. The Bush administration has been slaughtering the U.S. manufacturing jobs like the Canadians club baby seals in the artic.

So ok everybody here is your economics 101. What is the correlation between $4.3 trillion in trade deficits under George W and 3 million manufacturing workers, that had a decent living and health care coverage now working at a low paying customer service center or god forbid Wal-Mart. The correlation between trade deficits and the 50 percent fall of the value or the dollar to the euro, or the quadrupling of the price of gold under George and Dick?

None of the candidates has come out with a new plan to deal with the changing of America from an industrial super power to the capital of the world’s fast food empire. I hope McCain and the Neo-Convicts plan on winning the next major conflict by killing our enemies with artery clogging McFries and McShakes.

None of the candidates seem to have the will to do what is necessary to deal with the de-industrialization of America, our dependency on foreign technology, manufactures and the massive loans to pay for our deficit spending. McCain even goes further when he informed autoworkers that their “jobs are not coming back” and that protectionist steps would be bad for America.

McCain thinks the lowest cost of a weapons system is the most important factor. He even supports the winning bid by Airbus a European venture to build the next generation of Air Tankers for our military. Boeing now will miss out on a deal that it says would have supported 44,000 new and existing jobs at the company and suppliers in 40 states.

All I can say is we better start protecting our manufacturing jobs because it will be hard to buy tanks and jets from the people you might be fighting in the next conflict. Imagine if we would have had to ask the Japanese for enough tanks, planes, and ships so we could defeat them during WWII.

Bush / Cheney have created an economic disaster that could put this country out of business and if this goes on much longer there won’t be any American companies to protect.

Peace and Liberty through intelligence, strength, and integrity.

Congress does something right. MAYBE!!!!!

2008-03-12T11:34:00.000-07:00

Maybe our phone calls, faxes, and emails helped but whatever did the trick, I believe that congress is beginning to notice that we the people might just be paying attention to what they do up on capital hill.

Last night the Congress passed (H. Res. 895) which will create an independent ethics panel to review ethics complaints against lawmakers. This is an improvement over the current system which is a joke.

The ethics panel will have six members 3 Republicans and 3 Democrats. The problem with the bill is that it won’t have subpoena power and that it will simply forward recommendations to the actual House ethics committee for further action. Critics are calling this bill a paper tiger, while some say it is better than the current system and something is better than nothing.

This Bill had opposition from Republicans and Democrats alike. I wonder what they are hiding from? Recently two House members are under indictment, two others sent to prison, and several others under FBI investigation. Why the heck would the House O Representatives want anybody overseeing their behavior?

What did our Representatives have to say on this issue??

Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-KS) said “If you have a single ounce of self-preservation, you’ll vote no.”

John Murtha (D-PA) “We have a New York governor in the news right now who shows that you can’t legislate ethics. It always comes down to the individual.”

Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii) voiced his disdain for this ethics bill when he said “With this proposal we are indicting ourselves, yielding and retreating to those who would tear this House down and denigrate us as crooks and knaves and hustlers.” Abercrombie even tried to derail this legislation by forcing a vote on a motion to adjourn at 8pm which failed and the vote went ahead and passed.

With the performance of the Ethics Committee over the past 10 years considered pathetic, an independent ethics panel is sorely needed. However without subpoena power or the ability to consider complaints filed by anyone other than members or congress, has serious problems and will deserve a close scrutiny.

Peace and Liberty through intelligence, strength, and integrity.

This week Mike Chavers will be on WTAN 1340 AM Radio

2008-03-12T09:21:00.001-07:00

Mike Chavers will be playing music on WTAN 1340 Sunday Night March 16th 2008 at 11:59pm EST, with the station hosts Jonathan Sands & Jim Mortellaro, featuring Tommy McCoy, in the first of a series of live broadcasts by local artists here in the Tampa Bay area. We will be taking call ins so give us a call.

We will be posting the line up as it becomes available. We have the Likes of Jimmy Griswold, Josh Nelms, Sandy Atkinson, Robin Rothwell, Peter Merrigan and Charlie Morris just to mention a few who will be appearing.

If any of you songwriters out there are interested in appearing on the Sunday program send me an email.

If your business is in need of a plug, drop me an email and Jon and Jim will get their rate schedule out to you. It’s really inexpensive to advertise on WTAN.

Jonathan Sands web site
http://www.radiobullseye.com/

Saturday March 15th 2008

Mike Chavers is playing with Tommy McCoy at Central Station Saturday March 15th 2008 which is located in the last strip mall on 107th St. before the Belmar on Treasure Island. It used to be Nick’s Sea breeze and has a new owner. We start early at 8pm so come on out and hear some new tunes from Tommy’s New CD.

Sunday March 16th 2008

Mike Chavers is playing with Deje Groove at Coconuts Comedy Club, 2950 Gulf to Bay Blvd, Clearwater, FL 33759 from 7:30 to 11:30. We are featuring Jerry Chase on the drums and vocals, Tommy McCoy on guitar and vocals. This is an open jam so bring your ax and come on down and party with the band.

Tommy and I will be hauling ass to get over to the station after the gig so doesn’t forget to tune in and hear some music and road stories.

Turn off the TV and come on and see some live music.

Bluesfuly yours
Mike Chavers

http://mikechavers.blogspot.com/

Read articles by Mike Chavers and many other writers at OpEd News.
http://www.opednews.com/author/author7762.html

Peace and Liberty through intelligence, strength, and integrity.

Some lawmakers actually think we are stupid enough to believe that Congress can police itself!!!

2008-03-04T11:58:00.000-08:00

Last week I had some real hope that the Congress of the United States of America was finally going to have an independent Ethics panel consisting of six members 3 from the Democrats and 3 from the Republicans. They would review and investigate reports of ethics violations of members of the Congress. There would be a time line so that the investigations could not be buried and forgotten. There would also be transparency and findings would be made public in a timely fashion.

Well it seems that Republicans and Democrats whined and cried so much that a vote on this important issue H. Res. 895 was canceled.

Well ladies and gents what do you think? At this time Congress polices itself. Let us see if the current rules are sufficient.

Under current rules, only a member of Congress can file an ethics complaint against another member. In the most recent scandals of lawmakers breaking the law Randy Duke Cunningham R-CA and Bob Ney R-OH were arrested, convicted and sentenced for bribery. What did the House Ethics Committee do? NOTHING!!!!

When federal agents found $90,000 of cash in Rep. William Jefferson’s D- LA freezer and indicted him on corruption charges, no ethics complaints were filed. Maybe a lot of Lawmakers do their banking from their freezers. The most recent case is of Rick Renzi (R-AZ). He was indicted last week on 35 counts of extortion, money laundering and conspiracy relating to his efforts to get the federal government to buy land from his business partner.

Here is a link to (H. Res. 895) for the 110th Congress.
http://www.rules.house.gov/110/text_hres895.pdf

I advise all you activists out there to write, call, stop by your lawmaker’s office but let them know that the citizens demand accountability. Ask them to support this important legislation or face the consequences at the ballot box.

This is an important step to taking back our government from special interests and it is important to take action.

Call your lawmaker today and demand that they support this legislation. You can find your lawmaker here.
http://www.house.gov/

Peace and Liberty through intelligence, strength, and integrity.

Real Ethics Reform.The most important issue of the century!!

2008-02-29T12:24:00.000-08:00

The people spoke in 2006 that we wanted real change in Washington. What did we get? We got impeachment off the table, the realization that many democrats approved of torture, and are still rubber stamping the administrations assault on the constitution, including impeachment is off the table Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

This week there is a possibility that the foxes will have to give up guarding the hen house. That is if we put the pressure on them and make them accountable. This week congress is going to vote on a resolution (H. Res. 895). This law will for the first time ever institute, an independent Office of Congressional Ethics with the power to file and investigate ethic complaints. The independent panel’s reports will be made public, and new timelines and reporting requirements will stop the Ethics Committee from burying complaints for years without action.

It is important for every citizen that loves freedom to call their congressman and insist that they support this very important legislation.

As it stands now only members of Congress can file, investigate and judge ethics complaints against their colleagues. Guess what no complaints were filed for seven years even while indictments were flying like a swarm of locusts over a crop of ripe corn, and congressman like the Duke Cunningham were being hauled off to jail.

We must throw the foxes out of the hen house and hold these SOB’s accountable.

Call, email, write snail mail, and fax your congressman and tell them you expect them to make this the People’s House of Representatives by supporting (H. Res. 895). To find your congressman click on this link.

http://www.house.gov/

Remember, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed individuals can change the world; indeed it's the only thing that ever has.” -- Margaret Meade

Peace and Liberty through intelligence, strength, and integrity.

This is what I am emailing feel free to use or alter.

Congressman Young

The foxes have been guarding the hen house for too long. I strongly urge you to vote in favor of House Res. (H. Res. 895).

This law will for the first time ever institute, an independent Office of Congressional Ethics with the power to file and investigate ethic complaints. The independent panel’s reports will be made public, and new timelines and reporting requirements will stop the Ethics Committee from burying complaints for years without action.

The people want change we want a congress that is transparent and accountable. Any lawmaker that does not support this legislation will be held accountable at the polls in November.

Michael Chavers

OBAMA still isn’t a Muslim!!

2008-02-26T12:09:00.000-08:00

“Not that there is anything wrong with that.”

I was on my gig on Saturday night playing the blues in a bar. The regular bunch of guys and dolls are in the audience and on the break somehow the talk turned to politics.

Low and behold I get from to reasonably normal and intelligent people to Ditto head dummies. From the Coultergeist calling Barack H. Obama “B Hussein Obama” to coworkers emailing Obama the Muslim pictures and stories linking him with al-Queda.

Ridiculous!!!!!

This is going to be one of the nastiest political campaigns in history I believe. I keep getting chain e-mails one claiming that Obama is a racist by virtue of belonging to Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ, the email goes on to say that this church only accept black parishioners.

False e-mail I received around the first of the year.

Subject: Obama's church

Obama mentioned his church during his appearance with Oprah. It's the Trinity Church of Christ. I found this interesting.

Obama's church:
Please read and go to this church's web site and read what is written there. It is very alarming.

Barack Obama is a member of this church and is running for President of the U.S. If you look at the first page of their web site, you will learn that this congregation has a non-negotiable commitment to Africa. No where is AMERICA even mentioned. Notice too, what color you will need to be if you should want to join Obama's church..._ B-L-A-C-K!!!_ doesn’t look like his choice of religion has improved much over his (former?) Muslim upbringing. Are you aware that Obama's middle name is Mohammed? Strip away his nice looks, the big smile and smooth talk and what do you get? Certainly a racist, as plainly defined by the stated position of his church! And possibly a covert worshiper of the Muslim faith, even today. This guy desires to rule over America while his loyalty is totally vested in a Black Africa!

I cannot believe this has not been all over the TV and newspapers. This is why it is so important to pass this message along to all of our family & friends. To think that Obama has even the slightest chance in the run for the presidency, is really scary.
Click on the link below:
This is the web page for the church Barack Obama belongs to: www.tucc.org/about.htm

WTF!!!! First of all Obama’s middle name is not Mohammed, it is Hussein. Now the facts about Obama’s Church. Trinity describes itself as “a congregation which is unashamedly black and unapologetically Christian and does not apologize for its African roots.”

The church specifies a commitment to Africa and to “Historical education of African people in Diaspora.” The congregation is overwhelmingly black, amazing that a church in a white or black neighborhood reflects the race of the neighborhood.

It has been established that Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ welcomes all races as written by a professor of theology at the University of Chicago Divinity School, Martin E. Marty. He recommends watching Trinity’s Sunday services, and challenges anyone to find anything cultic or sectarian about them. He also on occasion attends with his wife and said like all other non-blacks, are enthusiastically welcomed.

Even the right leaning www.FactCheck.org stated that “Wherever we looked we found ample evidence that Obama’s church is pro-black, but we found none to support a claim that it is anti-white. Calling it racist is in our judgment a falsehood.”

This is another e-mail I was forwarded by a friend trying to convince me not to support Obama.

Who is Barack Obama?

Very interesting and something that should be considered in your choice.

If you do not ever forward anything else, please forward this to all your contacts...this is very scary to think of what lies ahead of us here in our own United States...better heed this and pray about it and share it.

We checked this out on "snopes.com". It is factual. Check for yourself.

Who is Barack Obama?

Probable U. S. presidential candidate, Barack Hussein Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, to Barack Hussein Obama, Sr., a black MUSLIM from Nyangoma-Kogel, Kenya and Ann Dunham, a white ATHEIST from Wichita, Kansas.

Obama's parents met at the University of Hawaii. When Obama was two years old, his parents divorced. Hi s father returned to Kenya. His mother then married Lolo Soetoro, a RADICAL Muslim from Indonesia.?
When Obama was 6 years old, the family relocate to Indonesia. Obama attended a MUSLIM school in Jakarta. He also spent two years in a Catholic school.

Obama takes great care to conceal the fact that he is a Muslim.
He is quick to point out that, "He was once a Muslim, but that he also attended Catholic school."

Obama's political handlers are attempting to make it appear that
that he is not a radical.

Obama's introduction to Islam came via his father, and that this influence was temporary at best. In reality, the senior Obama returned to Kenya soon after the divorce, and never again had any direct influence over his son's education.

Lolo Soetoro, the second husband of Obama's mother, Ann Dunham, introduced his stepson to Islam. Obama was enrolled in a Wahabi school in Jakarta.

Wahabism is the RADICAL teaching that is followed by the Muslim terrorists who are now waging Jihad against the western world. Since it is politically expedient to be a CHRISTIAN when seeking major public office in the United States, Barack Hussein Obama has joined the United Church of Christ in an attempt to downplay his Muslim background. ALSO, keep in mind that when he was sworn into office he DID NOT use the Holy Bible, but instead the Koran.

Barack Hussein Obama will NOT recite the Pledge of Allegiance nor will he show any reverence for our flag. While others place their hands over their hearts, Obama turns his back to the flag and slouches.

Let us all remain alert concerning Obama's expected presidential candidacy.
The Muslims have said they plan on destroying the US from the inside out, what better way to start than at the highest level - through the President of the United States, one of their own!!!!

Please forward to everyone you know. Would you want this man leading our country?...... NOT ME!!!

This slime originated from a January 2007th Insight magazine article

Insight: Are the American people ready for an elected president who was educated in a Madrassa as a young boy and has not been forthcoming about his Muslim heritage?

This article, which cited only anonymous sources, claimed the Barack Obama spent 4 years in a so called madrassa in Indonesia. When CNN reporter John Vause went to Jakarta, Indonesia to investigate he found the allegations of the school being a madrassa was completely false.

CNN’s Vause stated “I came here to Obama’s elementary school in Jakarta looking for what some are calling an Islamic madrassa ... like the ones that teach hate and violence in Pakistan and Afghanistan. … I've been to those madrassa's in Pakistan ... this school is nothing like that. CNN interviewed the school's deputy headmaster, Hardi Priyono, who said: "This is a public school. We don't focus on religion."

Obama’s side has issued press releases saying the claims of these and other stories are completely false. Stories in the Washington Post, The L. A. Times and the Chicago Tribune has also investigated these claims and found them to be baseless.

Obama’s childhood in Indonesia is nothing he has ever tried to hide. He documents this in his own book “Dreams from My Father.”

Here are a few other false claims that have been circulating in my e-mails since Obama decided to run for president.

False: Obama was sworn into office using the Koran instead of the Bible. This e-mail states: "when he was sworn into office he DID NOT use the Holy Bible, but instead the Koran" When Obama was sworn into office in the U.S. Senate, he used his own Bible. This claim confuses Obama with House member Keith Ellison who is Muslim and did use a Koran to be sworn in.

False: Obama doesn’t say the pledge nor will he show any reverence for our flag" and that "while others place their hands over their hearts, Obama turns his back to the flag and slouches." These e-mails usually come with a photo that was taken during a "steak-fry" for Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa on Sept. 16, 2007. What is pictured is the singing of the national anthem, not a recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance. For proof, there is a video taken by ABC News during the event. There is no requirement to hold your hand over your heart for the National Anthem.

By going on the internet you can usually disprove any of these lies with less trouble than it takes to forward them to all your contacts. I find it very disappointing that when you have a candidate that you can’t find any real faults with, that you have to lie to try and discourage people from voting for him.
Just remember a vote for McCain come November means 100 years in Iraq, more big business control of congress, and more of the same ole same ole in Washington. It is time to sweep out the old and bring in the new, Democrat and Republican alike.

Peace and Liberty through intelligence, strength, and integrity.

This week Mike Chavers will be Talking Politics on WTAN 1340 am

2008-02-19T08:00:00.001-08:00

This week Mike Chavers will be Talking Politics on WTAN 1340 am

This week Mike Chavers will be talking politics on WTAN 1340 Tuesday Night February 19th 2008 at 11:59pm with the station host Jonathan Sands, and democratic candidate for the 10th U.S. Congressional District in Florida Samm Simpson.
http://sammsimpsonforcongress.com/

Jonathan Sands web site
http://www.bullseyebroadcasting.com/index.php
http://www.radiobullseye.com/

You can listen or call in and comment or listen to it on the radio or internet or check it out Wednesday at their website.

If you are tired of politics as usual and want some real change, turn off the TV find out who your elected officials are and what they stand for. If you need help in finding your elected officials just drop me an email and I will help.

Remember that we will only have a Constitutional Democracy with an educated, informed, and involved populace. Otherwise you will get Big Brother taking away your rights one at a time until you wake up one day and your choices are all gone.
http://michaelchavers.blogspot.com/

Read articles by Mike Chavers and many other writers at OpEd News.
http://www.opednews.com/author/author7762.html

Peace and Liberty through intelligence, strength, and integrity.

FISA IS ABOUT TO EXPIRE AND HERE COME THE TERRORISTS AGAIN!!!!

2008-02-14T12:41:00.000-08:00

Our Commander in Thief is rarely articulate unless the boogey man of terror pops his head out of the hole like a Whack-a-Mole game and scares the hell out of George.

Well the whacky terrorists are terrorizing George again, and George wants to protect us from the terrorists, who want to take away our freedoms by not leaving any freedoms to take away, therefore defeating the terrorists by making the USA a fascist state. Long live the king!!!!

George tells congress yesterday, that you better let him take charge of your constitutional protections against unreasonable search and seizure, because them folks over there are coming over here, and they hate your freedom so let’s just ignore this G#D@MN piece of paper and go getem. He actually said “terrorists are planning attacks on our country that will make September 11th pale by comparison.”

You know George, too bad you didn’t take the warning that the Clinton administration handed you, before September 11th 2001, when we had information got by legal means without dismembering the constitution.

Nobody questions the fact that al-Queda would like nothing more than another 9/11 so why don’t you invest more in guarding our nuclear & chemical facilities and do more to protect our ports. NOOOOOO you just want to deliver us from our constitutional protections against the likes of you and your cable of cretins.

We as Americans don’t want to trade away our hard-won civil liberties and there is nothing wrong with having judges decide what needs to be wiretapped when it involves Americans.

Ole Georgie boy wants to extend for six more years the broad eavesdropping powers that the fearful congress gave him last August. Which they legalized the illegal wiretapping that the administration had already been conducting for years on George’s say so. He would also grant amnesty to phone companies that broke the law in giving up this information.

It is a shame that the Senate including 19 of the new political party that was formed in 2006 called the Fraiddycrats, Democrats fearful of standing up to Bush and company.

Now let’s get it straight, when judicial oversight is reduced, government agencies spying inevitably extends beyond national security threats to political opponents, journalists, protesters and anybody that bothers Bush / Cheney so don’t just look at the empty suit that says trust me and I will keep you safe from terror.

It should be easy to scare even the right from passing this flawed legislation. It is more than likely that a Democrat will have the power to look at anyone without judicial revue. Get real scared boys because it might just be Hillary looking into your pageboy or restroom antics or maybe the bags of money hidden in secret locations that might be leaked over a loose phone conversation or email. YIKES!!! Everyone be afraid be very afraid. If I where you Monica I would get the hell out of Dodge and head to Katmandu.

Before the illegal wire tapping began all that was required was that if one end of the conversation was in the USA it required a warrant within 3 days from the special FISA court, which by the way approved more than 99% of all the applications applied for.

George warns us that if the righteous phone companies don’t get immunity, they’ll never cooperate again but the patriotic SOB’s will shut down your national security if you don’t pay the bill on time.

Bush says he will refuse to temporarily extend the current law, which expires on Saturday. I say let it die and get a warrant if you need to spy on someone in the USA. That’s what the founders would have wanted and I agree.

Remember a patriot and founder of this country once said “Those who would give up ESSENTIAL LIBERTY to purchase a little TEMPORARY SAFETY, deserve neither LIBERTY nor SAFETY.”

Peace and Liberty through intelligence, strength, and integrity.

The right wing smear machine says Obama is a Muslim so they must be right!!!

2008-02-08T11:59:00.001-08:00

The right wing smear machine says Obama is a Muslim so they must be right!!!

My wife got a call from her son last night who told her that he would not support Barack Obama because he is a Muslim. WTF!!!!!! It amazes me how stupid the American public has become. Then again with the amount of people who tune into Rush O’Reilly, and Glenn Coultergeist and the like, really can’t be counted on to think for themselves.

Just to set the record straight when you hear a rumor about someone check it out. It is not hard just go on line and get the facts from several sources don’t just listen to Rush or Glenn and call it gospel. The rightwing nuts will lie, cheat, block people from voting and do anything to promote their crazy agenda.

He has been called a Muslim who attended a madrassa, he is accused of being a member of a church in Chicago that has a separatist doctrine that contradicts the basic tenets of Christianity, he has had to fend off baseless accusations of scandals, and the right mocks his name and his race.

The day after Obama announced his presidential exploratory committee the right wing website InsightMag.com published an article that reported that Obama spent at least four years in a so Madrassa which is a Muslim seminary. You can read what they said here.

http://www.insightmag.com/Media/MediaManager/Obama_2.htm

This is a lie and has been completely debunked by CNN, the AP and ABC but did it go away NOOOOOOOOO. The pudgy idiot Glenn Beck who often speaks when he should be listening or at least checking his facts reported that Obama attended a radical Muslim school.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/01/22/obama.madrassa/index.html
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/politics/20070124-1317-obama-2008.html
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=2822061

Then as the discredited charges Obama’s association with the Islam began to fade the right began smearing the Christian Church in Chicago where Obama is a member. MSNBC own right winger Tucker Carlson during the Obameter segment on his show 2/07/07 criticized Obama for being a member of a church that Carlson claimed “sounds separatist to me and contradicts the basic tenets of Christianity”

http://mediamatters.org/items/200702090009

The smear continued on the Hannity & Colmes opinion show on 2/28/07 with Hannity said that many call Trinity separatist and a cult. His guest Erik Rush from the WorldNetDaily said the church has a scary doctrine, something that you’d see in a cult or an Aryan Brethren Church. Rush even questioned Obama’s Christianity on the show.

http://mediamatters.org/items/200703010012

Similar smears were directed at Obama’s church on the 4/05/07 broadcast of KSFO’s Sussman, Morgan and Vic when Morgan said Obama’s proud to belong to a church that their allegiance goes to Africa before it goes to America. This is a complete fabrication.

Here is a web site to the church you decide. There is no statement that a commitment to Africa supercedes the commitment to America. In fact Trinity's pastor, Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., responded to the attacks, saying: "The African-centered point of view does not assume superiority, nor does it assume separatism. It assumes Africans speaking for themselves as subjects in history, not objects in history."
http://www.tucc.org/about.htm

Hate mongers like Debbie Schlussel argues because Obama’s middle name is Hussein and that his late father was of Muslim descent Obama’s loyalties must be called into question. Others like Lee Rodgers KSFO’s morning show Fox Hews contributor Juan Williams question Obama’s loyalty because his father was Muslim.

I can remember back in the sixties that the crazies back then called Kennedy’s loyalty into question because he was a catholic and would have to obey the pope.

Now to be absolutely clear, Senator Obama has never been a Muslim, was not raised a Muslim, and is a committed Christian who attends the United Church of Christ in Chicago. It is well documented that the Indonesian school Obama attended in Jakarta is a public secular school that is not and has never been a Madrassa.

So to all you swiftboaters out there not all Americans are the stupid goose stepping morons you think we are, and we do check your lies and we are not going to be swiftboated again.

Your reign of terror is about to end. Your tactics of fear mongering and lying to the American people is about to be repudiated and we are going to send you all back to hide under the rocks you slid out from back in 2000.

Peace and Liberty through intelligence, strength, and integrity.

Mr. & Mrs. Candidate, where is the America I grew up in and what will you do to get me back there.

2008-02-05T16:45:00.000-08:00

I grew up in a family that came from real poverty. The son of a sharecropper in south Alabama, who moved North after serving in the army in WWII with the dream of making a good living so that his family wouldn’t have the lack of opportunity that he had when he grew up.

Dad got a job in a factory and then worked in construction building the Niagara Mohawk power plant in Niagara Falls N.Y. after the factory closed down, and when the Niagara Mohawk project was finished he landed a job working for General Motors in Buffalo until he retired.

All the while he bought a house and sent me to college and helped me raise my family and retired to Florida in 1984 the American Dream fulfilled.

Now as I view this country I say what the hell has happened on my watch. Man am I going to have a lot of explaining to do to my sons.

I have always believed that America was the good guy the John Wayne, who drove the evil out and replaced it with decency and virtue.

In the 21st century we are witnessing the death of the America the good guy. We must take a view of the world and with it America the good and bad then view it with truth and reality. We must decide who we are going to become and what course we will take.

The founders gave all the free men of the time the right to vote and in time we freed a race of people from the bonds of slavery and gave women the right to participate in this grand experiment of constitutional democracy.

In accepting this, we say we trust our elected representatives to listen to what we say and trust the people who elected them. The people are not to be coerced and intimidated to have the right to dissent or agree with what our politician’s platforms are and that every vote should count for something.

As the politics of greed and fear begin to darken the horizon of our Nation, we trust each other less than in any time I have seen in my life and trust less the principles upon which this nation was founded.

Where Kennedy said ask not what your country can do for you ask what you can do for your country we have been taken over by the corporate greedheads that could care less what happens to this country or its people.

Where we once dreamed beyond the boundaries of fear and diversity we now wall up communities to keep diversity out. Instead of being able to demonstrate and dissent the current administration fences in protests miles away from where they will be and arrests people who wear Tee shirt with a dissenting message against current policy.

We used to subscribe the separation of church and state and now the current administration gives a litmus test for any one wanting to become a federal judge or political appointee.

The America I grew up in saw John Wayne protecting the weak farmer from the powerful rancher who cut off his water, now we have W protecting the war profiteers with no bid contracts and sweetheart deals. We protect foreign dictators from their people striving to start labor unions for a better way of life for their families. This is not my America.

It is time to return to a time where John Wayne will protect that struggling farmer, to a time where people who work hard will reap the fruit of their labor and where people will work toward the betterment of the citizens and its government alike.

Some will have us fear Islam and tell us that the terrorists are coming to get us while we lie in our beds. This is nonsense, we of course must remain vigilant, but to buckle to fear by turning against the principles that made this country great is losing the war to terrorism.

We need not become the Orwellian state as presented in the novel 1984. That is losing the war on terror. We must insist that this and any future government follows the rule of law that was handed down by our founders who paid the cost in blood to protect our rights as Americans. The constitution is more than just a “G#DAMN PIECE OF PAPER.”

Let us do what Jesus did and throw the money changers out of the temple of peace and justice. Let us reclaim that American dream that no matter where you come from you can grow up to be what ever you want if you are willing to work hard be honest.

Let us find a way to enact universal healthcare for every citizen it is not impossible every industrial country in the world does it.

Let us hold fast to what our founder’s vision of democracy was. Refusing to surrender our liberty and privacy to the fear mongers that want to subjugate our people and install a totalitarian regime.

Let us make sure that we teach our children how to think not just take tests. Let us teach them how to have a democracy that is full of an involved and educated citizenry.

Let us take back control of the media and prevent the control of the internet from the few to the many and promote diversity of ideas and views it is what made this country great.

Let us take back the vote, making sure each vote is verifiable and accessible for every citizen without intimidation, phone jamming or any other tactics that have become standard practice in our elections to deny the people to vote.

Let us take back control of our government with campaign reform and an independent body that has the power to investigate and prosecute those in our government who would line their pockets with money and do the bidding of the rich and powerful to the detriment of the country.

Democrat, Republican, Liberal or Conservative, Green or Libertarian. Let this country unite and stand not for a political party or even a socio economic group. Let us stand for the Ideals that made America great in the first place. Let us return to that America.

Peace and Liberty through intelligence, strength, and integrity.

If you promise me somthing show me how you pay for it too!!!

2008-02-04T18:04:00.000-08:00

We have a looming fiscal crisis standing in the room like the proverbial 800 pound gorilla. Between Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid and all the other entitlement programs, defense programs and interest paid to those nice Chinese bankers who lend us the money, takes up probably 90 percent of the budget.

Not one candidate is telling us what they will cut in order to balance the budget. Clinton and Obama are promising universal health care and McCain is promising an occupation he is prepared to continue for 100 years in Iraq. They both want to add on a stimulus package of approximately $150 billion. Can anybody say reality check show me the money!!!!!

Now with the Fed cutting interest rates from 4.25 percent to 3 percent recently, this has sent the dollar sinking in value again which means higher oil prices and higher prices for any imports which we are now addicted too.

Now the Democrats say they are committed to withdrawing from Iraq none say that they are not leaving a large force in Iraq that we Americans will be paying for with money that will have to come from future generations.

The republicans however say they are committed for 100 years. After 7 years of major conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq we have a major strategic crisis. It will get worse if new conflicts arise with Iran, Pakistan, North Korea, and even Russia seems ready to have a go with another possible arms race.

Our military is stretched so thin I am wondering as should all you voters out there who will fight these wars??? Romeys boys won’t be in the fray and neither of the Bush twins has volunteered.

Hell they want to invade Iran and we can’t even stop the invasion of the United States by barefoot Hispanics storming in from south of the boarder. What is to be done about illegal immigration. No one will tell us what the plans are because they are afraid to lose the Hispanic vote. By the way can anyone tell me where the heck Hispania is anyway. I am still trying to find Causicaia on a map.

What is to happen to the middle class? I don’t know about the rest of you out there I am a wage slave and every year since W has taken office my real earnings have taken a downward turn and is now spiraling out of control like a Japanese Zero who just encountered a P38 during WWII.

Now candidates I am listening, and I am waiting for someone to step up and tell me how we are going to fund Social Security, Medicare, finance foreign aid and defend nations like Iraq that refuse to make the sacrifices needed politically to defend themselves?

The only rays of hope I see are that we do have a couple of guys that are speaking either the truth or offering hope. Both men have integrity and the support of a growing youth movement. On the dems side we have Obama, who is the candidate of hope. On the other side of the isle we have Ron Paul who is giving us a triple finger shot of truth. The rest of the field offer nothing but more of the Same Ole S#!T.

The choice is yours America.

Peace and Liberty through intelligence, strength, and integrity.

$300 Bucks holy crap what a windfall.

2008-01-28T11:51:00.000-08:00

Holy crap these criminally insane knuckleheads, in positions of power, who really think that all of the American people are too stupid to see this ploy as kissing babies in an election year.

Three hundred dollars for each working man and woman WTF!!!! This is going to prevent a recession!!! Horse crap!!!

Bail out the predatory lenders?? What a great idea make sure the hedge fund managers get their cut. Oh that's right they already got theirs plus a hefty tax break too.

Here's the deal boys and girls. This is chicanery, tomfoolery and you're being hoodwinked again. The growing economic nightmare that is coming is not going to be solved by giving me $300 bucks.

I am not a sophisticated financial planner or economist but here it goes my attempt at the financial survival plan for the first decade of the 21st century.

If you don't have it in cash don't buy it!!!!

If your kids can't wear it, eat it, live in it, or learn from it, don't buy it!!!

If you are in a dead end low paying job, turn off American Idolatry, CSI, Survivor on The Moon, Nancy Grace, or anything that has to do with Britney Hilton, and go through the paper and find what kind of jobs are in demand that pay good and enroll in your local community college and train for that job instead of numbing your brain with mindless TV.

Pay off your credit card debt and tear up most of your cards!!!

If you are sending your children to college don't get a second mortgage send your child to community college then on to finish at a state school. Remember this was true in my days at school in the 60's and it is true today. If you want to get laid go to college if you want an education go to the library and read a book!!!

No matter what age you are the younger the better, don't depend on the government that is Social Security for your survival financial or otherwise. Start a retirement account now if you have an employer matching account take the full advantage of it, because the government has been taking all of the Social Security surpluses we have put into the treasury's front door since 1983 and sliding it out the back door to build Regan's star wars bullshit defense package and finance this Iraq debacle.

In 2017 or there a bouts all the baby boomers will all be drawing SSI and the fund will dip into the red again. Even though we put in enough money to cover our asses we the people let these blood sucking viper lawbreakers in congress siphon off our social security, for ear marks on bridges to nowhere, on other pork barreling, and endless war schemes.

Lastly we will not have a constitutional democracy with power to the people much longer unless we become an informed and involved citizenry. So wake up and smell the B#!!$#IT we have been getting, wake up your friends and family let's wake up America.

What ever candidate we send to the White House this year if they are telling you everything is great just go shopping, you better start hording caned beans and ammo.

The only way we are going to recover is to adapt a pay as your go policy with deficit reduction on top of that and it will not be painless. We must pay for the neo-con wars that they want your children to foot the bill for; we need to develop a sound trade policy that doesn't reward companies that ship jobs overseas, we must develop sound energy policies in public not like Dick "Head" Cheney behind closed doors with is oil corporation buddies. We must reexamine all of our trade treaties and keep only the ones that are good for America and not just good for big business.

Like I said before I am not an economist but I know that if your monitory system is flawed and your spending more than you take in you are going to be in trouble before too long. What we will need to get through this is sound economic reform and fiscal responsibility. Any candidates willing to talk truthfully about this let's hear it.

Peace and Liberty through intelligence, strength, and integrity.

Protecting those War Profiteers oops!!! I mean Patriotic Phone Companies in the Global War on Terror

2008-01-16T13:48:00.001-08:00

President Bush says he will veto any legislation that doesn’t give the Patriotic Phone Companies immunity for illegally spying on Americans. The phone companies are begging for immunity from breaking the law because they say they were only being patriotic and trying to help keep us safe.

In the FISA debate the phone company’s main legal argument on why they spied on Americans and should be exempted from lawsuits challenging the legality of warrantless spying on phone calls and emails is that they were helping the government as a patriotic duty in a time of crisis.

Well that is a bunch of B#LL$#IT. It is reported in CNN that the phone companies have cut off wire taps because the FBI was late on paying their bill. Now that is real patriotism.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/01/10/fbi.unpaid.phone.bills.ap/index.html

The only thing that this so called war on terror has produced is dead and wounded Americans and super rich war profiteers. Since September 11th 2001 this country has enriched many American Corporations who milk our treasury dry.

Here is another site dedicated to exposing this.
http://www.warprofiteers.com/article.php?list=type&type=176

The head ChickenHawks in this administration have made millions from the blood of our brave troops and the misery of Iraqi civilians. Dick “Head” Cheney for instance has never completely severed his ties to Halliburton and receives millions of dollars in deferred income and stock dividends with all the no bid contracts awarded his company.

Former Attorney General John Ashcroft now heads The Ashcroft Group; a consulting firm that helps companies win federal homeland security contracts. Former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge runs a consulting firm and advices Lucent Inc. Joe Allburgh was the head of FEMA and now runs New Bridge Strategies a unique company that was created specifically with the aim of assisting clients to take advantage of business opportunities in Iraq.

These and many other people from the Bush inner circle are traitors and have used the blood of America’s best for mega profitable business opportunities.

Bush said go shopping.

Where is the outrage?? Has any candidate commented on war profiteering?? Where is the leader with the courage to say, as Franklin D Roosevelt did during WWII “I don’t want to see a single war millionaire created in the United States as a result of this world disaster”.

Bush said go shopping.

Peace and Liberty through intelligence, strength, and integrity.

Let’s get back to issues

2008-01-15T11:53:00.000-08:00

The last several days are a good example of how to divide your base and let another rightwingnut win the presidency.

Alright children let’s put an end to name calling and who said what to whom. Let’s get back to issues. Tell us specifically what you are going to do for the USA and at least an outline of how you will accomplish it.

Granted both Clinton, Obama, and Edwards have voted for Bush’s war money you all screwed up big time ok!!! Both Clinton and Obama have ties to big money, OK how are we going to end the strangle hold that big money special interests have on our country??

How are going to restore constitutional checks and balances to restore the balance to the three co-equal branches of our government, so that we don’t repeat the mistake of letting a complete moron of a president lead America into another endless war??

How will you end partisan politics in your appointments so that we don’t have another unqualified jerk hired because he kissed enough A$$ “Heck of a job Brownie” when the next Katrina happens?

How will you end big media control of information going out to the American people??

What will you do to restore our foreign policy so that we don’t create more enemies than we can possibly kill in a lifetime?

What will you do to restore American jobs and end the huge deficit that has been created by these mindless war profiteering thugs in power now??

Quit the name calling and get back to the issues so that we don’t have to endure another 4 years of a Ghouliani, Huckabuck, or a sneering McCain or poster boy Romney.

Peace and Liberty through intelligence, strength, and integrity.

Congress now has the chance to do nothing and make it count.

2008-01-11T07:44:00.000-08:00

The Fourth Amendment

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

As we watch the primary races lets not take our eyes off the scoundrels that we have allowed to erode our constitutional rights one by one. As one of the worst congresses ever and some would argue that the 109th congress was the worst. I disagree because those scoundrels where the bad guys and we knew that. The 110th congress was elected to right the wrongs that the Bush / Cheney regime heaped on America and did little except wring their hands and say woe we don’t have the 60 votes.

Congress now has the chance to do nothing and make it count. On February 8th 2008 this abomination to our constitutional rights will expire. Last August 2007 the Protect America Act was rushed through congress legalizing executive branch domestic wiretapping without warrants.

It’s incredible that this was passed in the first place because this administration has been breaking FISA laws which require warrants to snoop on Americans and ignoring the 4th Amendment rights against unreasonable searches and seizures since February 2001 well before September 11th.

Congress reconvenes January 22nd 2008, Senate Majority leader Harry (hapless) Reid plans to bring an unacceptable bill S. 2248 to the Senate floor for a vote. This bill contains retroactive immunity for the poor misguided telecom companies who handed over the private communications of Americans to Bush / Cheney Company without being served warrants to do so.

It boggles my mind that even with the incredible mandate we gave congress in 2006 that they would even consider rubberstamping the shredding of our 4th amendment rights and give immunity retroactively to the Bush / Cheney administration and their Telecom pals.

There is however a Judiciary Committee version of this bill which contains 4th Amendment fixes and does not provide immunity to the telecom industry. This bill is subject to floor amendments that could weaken the bill. The president has promised a veto of the bill if it doesn’t grant immunity to the telecoms.

The best way to kill this abomination is to let it expire on its own because even King George W. can’t veto the natural expiration of a law.

Call your Senators and demand that congress restore 4th Amendment protections of Americans private communications and emails by letting the Protect America Act expire on February 8th 2008. Only if that fails should the Senate consider the Judiciary Committee version of S. 2248. There is no other reason to grant immunity to the Telecoms other than to protect the guilty and hide the truth from the American people.

Peace and Liberty through intelligence, strength, and integrity.

OpEd News
http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/diarypage.php?did=5554

Is it just me or does this upcoming presidential election looks more like a VEGAS sports booking parlor?

2007-12-11T08:41:00.000-08:00

I watch a lot of political news shows like Tim Russert, Face the Nation, Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann, Joe Scarborough and some others that analyze news and politics. What I keep getting is that this is a football game and not an issue driven presidential election.

You can even bet on who will win the nomination and election there is an article on this at Slate.com.
http://specials.slate.com/futures/2008/

This country is in dire need of a change in direction. The people need to take back the government from the well financed special interests and but the power back into the hands of the people.

CNN has a list of issues that they think will decide the election their issues are Abortion, Immigration, Iraq, same sex marriage, Social Security, Taxes, Health Care. Same sex marriage and Abortion, Why are these even on peoples minds when they decide a president.
http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/issues/issues.abortion.html

Five of the seven issues above are important and I want to know where the candidates stand on issues that actually mean something. I am against abortion but I don’t feel I have the right to tell someone that they can’t have one after she has been raped or her life is in danger because of the pregnancy or for any other reason it is a personal choice issue.

Same sex marriage, who cares!!!! If Johnny wants to marry Todd, or Ruth wants to be with Anne what business is that of mine. As long as Johnny and Todd are 18 it is none of my business what they do as long as it does not interfere with my rights.

I want to know where they stand on creating and independent ethics commission to investigate congressional & presidential ethics misconduct.

I want to know where they stand on banning registered lobbyists form giving gifts to members of congress and their staffs.

I want to know where they stand on public financing of all elections and spending limits on campaigns.

I want to know where they stand on restoring our constitutional rights and from further degrading our individual rights.

I want to know where they stand on torture and indefinite detention.

I want to know where they stand on limiting corporate media ownership.

I want to know where they stand on American imperialism and reducing our military presence around the world.

I want to know where they stand on bringing back jobs to America.

I want to know where they stand on the President misleading and out right lying to the American people to get us into an illegal and unnecessary war.

I want to know where they stand on NAFTA, CAFTA, and all these other trade agreements that cause Americans to lose their jobs.

It is time we become agitators and demand Congress to do the will of the people and not the will of the highest bidder. America needs the courage to stand up and be counted now as in no other time in our history.

Peace and Liberty through intelligence, strength, and integrity.

Constitutional Issues

2007-11-27T12:52:00.001-08:00

Constitutional Issues

Our Constitution is under assault by an administration that bases ideology before reason. They have taken the core values that had made America a beacon of freedom and justice throughout the world and have become no better than the people that we are at war with.

Before I vote for someone I would want to know where they stand on these issues.

What do you think of this current administrations power grab and do you plan to repudiate their attack on the U S Constitution and restore the rule of law?

Do you support the bipartisan National Security Letter Reform Act of 2007 bill S. 2088, which would narrow the types of records available without a court order and establishes a standard of individualized suspicion for issuing an NSL?

Do you support Guantanamo Bay, Cuba Detention Center Closure Act of 2007 S. 1469 which would to require all inmates to either be charged with crimes and be transferred to Ft Leavenworth or be transferred back to their home country?

Do you support the American Freedom Agenda Act of 2007 H.R. 3835, this bill would repeal the Military Commissions Act of 2006, and clarifies that no information if it is obtained by torture or coercion may be used as evidence?

Do you support FISA legislation that would repeal current warrentless wiretapping and electronic surveillance, to not allow blanket warrants to spy on large groups of people who have committed no crime, and which would require court approval to spy on individuals?

To do the right thing is not always the easiest way but it is always the right thing to do.

Peace and Liberty through intelligence, strength and integrity.

The barbarians are not at the gates they have taken over the city.

2007-11-26T12:32:00.000-08:00

The barbarians are not at the gates they have taken over the city.

Our government has been high jacked by the big money interests. Now we had better find out how to take it back. With more wealth at the top tier of our society and less at the bottom we aren’t even getting the crumbs anymore.

A big key is to stop the revolving door that exists between business and government. We have progressed by passing tougher ethics laws earlier this year but they still do not go far enough.

We have a few candidates that are above this corruption like Ron Paul, Mike Gravel, and Dennis Kucinich but as much as I hate to say it they are not going to get elected. I like Obama, but he is surrounded by Wall Street and the D. C. insiders, so I am not sure about him. The only Clinton I want to see in the White House would be George Clinton (the roof is on fire let the muther F*%ker burn).

The fundamental issue of our time which is at the core of every other issue, whether it is Iraq, wages, health care, retirement security, trade, immigration, global warming is that powerful interests, particularly corporate interests, have literally taken over this government.

The only viable candidate that is not embracing these powerful interests so far is John Edwards. In his personal life he comes from humble roots and has some good ideas about solving some of this nations problems but I am not endorsing anyone yet. So in the upcoming 2008 elections the candidates only worth listening to will be the ones who will be willing to fix what is wrong in our government.

I want some answers on questions like.

Are you in favor of the Bipartisan Fair Elections Now Act S. 1285 which basically would favor the public financing of political campaigns in order to give voters more control over government, and make politicians accountable to constituents rather that campaign contributors??

Are you in favor of a law enacted to limit campaign spending in order to curb the escalating cost of running election campaigns??

If the candidates answer no to either of these questions, they are corporate pimps and not worthy to represent the citizens of this great nation.

If we do not force this issue in the coming elections and the coming years we will become nothing more than an Orwellian nation of slaves. Big Brother will be the massa and you will tow the line or wind up in a place like GITMO.

Peace and Liberty through intelligence, strength, and integrity.

The most recent FISA bill is an affront to the rule of law that the founders of this great nation wanted to protect us from.

2007-11-16T09:01:00.001-08:00

Our senators will be considering the most recent FISA bill and it is time to speak up and tell your senators to uphold the law and defend our Constitution. Two crucial principles regarding Warrantless spying on Americans are being considered by the Senate Judiciary Committee this week and they are.

1. Granting immunity to the phone companies that broke the law and handed over your phone and email records to the NSA.

2. Basket warrants or completely Warrantless searches which allows the government to sweep up information of a group of people. Say for instance that the NSA says that they want information on some members of the ACLU they could potentially spy on all members.

When the telecomm industry handed over your phone and email records to the NSA a while back they broke the law of the land. When, even the government tells you to break the law it is your duty to disobey that order. If you do not disobey that order you are liable to be prosecuted and punished, end of story.

The telecomm industry has plenty of lawyers on staff so they cannot claim ignorance of the law and should be held accountable and pay the price to succumbing to the wishes of our great potentate G W Bush.

On the second issue our Constitution was written to protect this nations citizens from unreasonable search and seizures. If the government doesn’t have evidence that you are breaking the law it has no right to spy on you.

If we allow this erosion of our rights to continue we will become a nation of slaves subservient to the wishes of the likes of George W and Dick “Tator” Cheney. Call, write, email your senators and tell them this is unacceptable and to stand down this rouge administration and stand up for the Constitution.

Peace and Liberty through intelligence, strength and integrity.

Support Dennis Kucinich’s impeachment resolution against vice president Cheney.

2007-11-15T12:21:00.000-08:00

Support Dennis Kucinich’s impeachment resolution against vice president Cheney.

On November 6th 2007 Dennis Kucinich introduced H. Resolution 799 to impeach Vice President Dick Cheney on the floor of the House as a “question of Privilege”. The reason this is important is because the speaker of the house Ms Pelosi has said that “impeachment is off the table” and since she as Speaker set the legislative agenda it would never have come up. Now as a question of privilege it had to be referred to the judiciary Committee for consideration.

House Judiciary Chair John Conyers has himself supported impeachment of the vice president in the past but is waffling on the issue now. If he hears from a lot of Americans it is much more likely to result in impeachment hearings. It is extremely important to contact John Conyers and your representative and pressure them to begin the process of impeachment.

The need to get involved has never been so urgent. Complacency is very dangerous Bush / Cheney can still do untold damage to this country with their saber rattling at Iran and continued assaults on the Constitution it is important to keep these thugs occupied defending themselves rather than creating more mischief for future generations to pay for and repair.

My letter will read like this and feel free to use it or make one of your own.
http://www.house.gov/conyers/
http://www.house.gov/

Congressman Conyers

Vice President Cheney repeatedly lied to the nation about the potential threat of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, provoking the invasion and occupation of that country, with catastrophic results for our nation.

He continues to lie and distort intelligence regarding links between Iraq and al Qaeda; when such links simply did not exist before our invasion and he continues to threaten aggression against Iran, in violation of the United Nations charter and in a manner that destabilizes the region and harms our national security.

All of these actions certainly meet the constitutional test of high crimes and misdemeanors. So I ask that you begin H. Res. 799, Articles of Impeachment against Vice President Cheney.

Sincerely
Michael Chavers

Peace and Liberty through intelligence, strength, and integrity.

A truly courageous soldier Lt. Ehren Watada

2007-11-15T12:17:00.000-08:00

Lt. Ehren Watada in June 2006 denounced this illegal occupation of Iraq and refused to deploy. He was tried for 2 specifications Conduct unbecoming of an officer and a gentleman (for statements made in speeches and interviews- Article 133) and 1 specification Missing Movement (for refusing to deploy to Iraq on June 22 2006 – Article 87). He could have been sentenced to up to 6 years in prison.

The point of this article is not the details of the trial which can be read on the following link.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ehren_Watada

I am writing to say this is how Americans should stand up and be counted. Lt Watada said he is not a conscientious objector because he is not opposed to all wars as a matter of principle. He is no coward either because he offered to serve in Afghanistan. Lt. Ehren Watada is a man of principle and he indeed took an oath when he enlisted into the United States Army. This is the oath he took.

I Ehren Watada, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear the faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President to the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.

Lt. Watada believes as I do that the war that lead to the occupation of Iraq has violated the Constitution and War Powers Act which limits the president in his role as Commander in Chief from using the armed forces in any way he sees fit. It also violates the UN Charter, the Geneva Conventions, and the Nuremberg Principles which bar wars of aggression. It is therefore his duty to disobey the orders to occupy Iraq.

The Congress has failed our country and should pay the price during the next election for not stopping this cabal of cretins in the executive branch for leading us into the ruination of our armed services, our reputation in world opinion and the pillaging of our treasury to the war profiteers.

Our last defense against this madness may be the military. Over 10,000 soldiers have deserted since the Iraq invasion. Now the administration rattles their sabers at Iran and it is said that before his term is over that Bush will attack Iran. Top military commanders have said that this will not happen on their watch. I hope that they stick to their word and fulfill their oath to defend the constitution and disobey any illegal acts of aggression.

I urge all the men at arms to disobey illegal and immoral orders and take the consequences do not desert but have the courage to stand up and go to trial and let this country hear why this war is illegal. You will be supported by many of us Americans.

Maybe then some more of our lawmakers would have the courage to do what is right and end the occupation and repudiate what this present administration has done to our constitution and freedom.

Peace and Liberty through intelligence, strength, and integrity.

What the hell has happened to my country??

2007-10-26T14:17:00.000-07:00

A simple man’s view of where we are and how we got there.

It was 1999 I was minding my own business and trying to get by and then in November the country cast their ballots for a president of this great country. We had to choose between a pretty smart Guy named Gore a smarter guy named Nader and this affable fellow but not too bright compassionate conservative named Bush.

Each side had their slogans don’t get Gored by Gore, don’t get bushwhacked by Bush and I can’t remember what that smarter guys side said. I did my duty and voted and I voted for Gore because he seemed like a decent fellow, pretty smart although I didn’t care for that lip lock he laid on Tippy at the convention. I’m just glad he didn’t grab her boob.

I lived in Florida at the time and still do as a matter of fact, but those ballots had a lot of swinging chads and so that not so smart but affable fellows brother, who was the governor had that lady who wore so much make up that I thought her face would crack if she gave any other expression than that phony smile they had painted on her face, declared the not so smart affable fellow president.

Well I was a little miffed because the country had done so well with that Rhodes Scholar chap who liked to do weird things with cigars and interns but I said what the hell, how bad could the not so smart affable fellow be anyhow.

So I’m going along with my life not really all that interested in politics. I thought we had the usual amount of pilfering of the treasury by those lawbreakers up in Washington but they had left enough to kind of go around.

I got kind of nervous in December though, you know the world was about to end because of that Y2K thing was going to destroy everything electronic in the world. I survived the Y2K fiasco so I thought everything was peachy. Well now we fast forward a little. Well then one day I woke up and turned the TV on and I see the world trade center on fire and come to find out a plane had run into it then kabloom another plane hits the other one.

I was upset because I had lived about 10 blocks north of those towers until 1986 when I had moved to Florida, I had even worked there on occasion and had some friends still there. Come to find out that a bunch of fellows from Saudi Arabia had done it on purpose. Now that not to bright affable fellow that was president had a bunch of friends from Saudi Arabia so I figure that they would sort it all out.

It turns out that these Saudi Arabia fellows had been told by the tallest guy in Afghanistan that if they took flying lessons and flew into those towers that they would go straight to heaven a get to have their way with 70 virgins. I thought that was kind of silly because God won’t let you do that.

I was real mad at that tall Saudi guy in Afghanistan and turns out that that smart Rhode Scholar president had known all along that that tall rascal was up to no good and even took a couple of shots at him but missed.

Being a smart chap and knowing he was retiring in a few months, he told the not so smart affable new president about that tall fellow in Afghanistan but he got the bums rush out of the White House and they all snickered and thought they knew how to handle it. Turns out that they gave those bad boys in Afghanistan a bunch of aid money before they flew into my friends buildings.

Now after that not so smart affable new president flew all his Saudi friends out of the country because everybody got pretty mad at those guys, he decided that he was going to go and kick some ass over there in Afghanistan.

A couple of weeks after the planes knocked down the tall buildings our not so smart but affable president says that we need to start a checking all those e-mails, phone calls, bank records, medical records, and we even need to start looking at who’s reading what at the public library and who’s buying them bad guy books at the Barnes and Noble store. He says that if he has got to go before a judge a get permission that those bad guys are going to gets again.

So all them lawbreakers up in the capital jump into step and say ok Mr. President save us from them bad guys. Hmmm I still am wondering how reading the letters I write to my mama is going to keep us safe? Besides a bunch of real smart and brave men wrote this thing called the constitution which protects us from some guy like that ole King George way back when to go doing anything he wants to do to the people he governs. You know it’s kind of funny that the president and that ole king got the same name though.

Now everybody on the planet is on America’s side because they knew that all those poor folks working in them towers most of whom where just poor schmucks trying to get by on a paycheck. Even them fellows in Iran, who had made ole Jimmy Carter look dumb by making those embassy folks stay in Iran longer than they had planed, gave America permission to fly our bombers over their country so we could go get the tall fellow over in Afghanistan.

Everything went pretty good to begin with; we beat up them Taliban and al Qaedian fellows pretty good but we kind of lost track of that tall rascal in Afghanistan. Then all of a sudden something kind of weird starts to happen. That not so smart affable president starts getting real mad at that Saddam fellow and says if he don’t turn over the weapons of math instruction he was going to bomb the hell out of him.

It wasn’t weapons of math instruction but mass destruction and he knew that Saddam fellow had some because his Daddy who had been president before that smart Rhodes Scholar president had given him some to shoot at them Iranian guys who had been fighting for years and loosing millions of troops to each other kind of canceling each others threat to the rest of the region out.

Well now the rest of the world is saying hey Mr. President, we got this Saddam fellow all bottled up with you blowing up all his air planes and tanks and such and with that no fly zone thing they can’t really be much of a threat, and furthermore those smart guys from the U.N. have been looking for those mass destruction things for a few years and can’t find nary a one, but Mr. President keeps getting advice from that chubby mad looking fellow I think who’s nick name is Tator you know Dick “Tator” Cheney.

Even Mr. Presidents generals say hey wait a minute we ain’t even got that tall fellow over in Afghanistan yet and we ain’t got enough troops to occupy that Saddam fellow’s country. Well sure enough that banker fellow who advised the president said what does that smart alleck general know about warfare, when we get that Saddam fellow all those Iraqi boys and girls will shower us with flowers for getting that bad ole Saddam guy.

Well now Mr. President goes to all them lawbreakers up on the Capital and says, let me take that SOB with all them WMD’s my daddy gave him down so America will be safe, cause that Saddam fellow was in bed with that tall guy we can’t find in Afghanistan.

I don’t know why but all them guys in the CIA kind of know that the President is making up a lot of stuff that ain’t quite true, but they don’t say nothing except for that Mr. Wilson and his pretty wife, who we found out from that guy that worked for Dick “Tator” Cheney, was a spy.

I don’t know about you, but I think that we shouldn’t tell everybody who our spies are, cause nobody will trust them anymore, and I think it’s against the law and turns out it was and so Tatars buddy Scooter was supposed to go to jail but that not so bright affable Mr. President said he had suffered enough so he let him go.

Now back to that Saddam fellow, Mr. President starts to bomb, then he invades Iraq and every thing went so well Mr. President got to land on an airplane on that big ole boat and with that big budge in his flight suit all puffed up declared the mission was accomplished.

It turns out that he didn’t tell those Iraqi fellows. It seems them Sunni’s fellows and them Shiite’s just don’t see eye to eye and would rather shoot each other than spit. So instead of showering our troops with flowers they start taking all them bombs that they had left over and nobody secured and get real mad.

Then they start to take TV remotes and cell phones and make up these remote controlled bombs from all them artillery shells and every time a U.S. Hummer comes by they change the channel and blow up our soldier boys and girls. Then them al Qaedians start to wear those funny vests that blow up and go into where all the Muslims go to church and start to blowing up all those old church’s.

Now all them Sunni and Shiite people are so mad at each other that they start to kick each other out of their neighborhoods, and they aren’t being so civil about and they go to warring on each other and our soldier boys and girls are smack in the middle of it.

Ok it’s election time again and it turns out that not so smart fellow is not so affable anymore because everyone is getting pretty mad at him for not really having accomplished any of the mission he started to accomplish. In fact every time he comes on TV he’s changing the mission. I guess if I was a general I’d be pretty confused now.

So they go campaigning and running against this tall war hero guy and I say to myself well the public can’t be dumb enough to vote for that not so smart fellow and his mad fat buddy Tatar. It turns out that they got whole lots of ads claiming that war hero was a fake. Not one of them who claimed it ever got into a fight along side him but it didn’t seem to make any difference. It seems if you put a big lie on TV and that Rush O’Reilly, and that Glenn Coultergeist says so everyone starts to believe it.

I believe that a lot of people where fooled by all that TV talk and they say that the not so smart fellow won the election again. Then he starts color coding the terror and seem like every time them lawbreakers in Washington go to voting on something that takes away some rights that color code seems to light up real high.

Right in the middle of this war and terror stuff here came Katrina and it sinks the city of New Orleans. Now all these people are living in the football stadium and Mr. President is on Vacation, but not to fear the Presidents good buddy Brownie is in charge of disaster relief. Mr. President came on the TV while all these people didn’t even have nothing to drink and he told Brownie your doing a hell of a job. I bet all them folks in New Orleans thought it was just hell and not a hell of a job. It turns out Brownie had been working for some horse show association and had got the job because Mr. Presidents 2000 campaign manager knew Brownie.

Things just keep getting worse and worse in Iraq and Mr. President decides to change the mission again and says when them Iraqi’s stand up we will stand down. The Iraqi’s start standing up and raising all kinds of hell shooting and bombing the hell out of Baghdad.

Then we have another election. Too bad we can’t vote for president yet but everyone is so mad at Mr. President that they send a bunch of his lawbreaker friends from Washington packing. This leaves the Democrats in charge and the first thing that that pretty new speaker does is tell the president he don’t have to worry about his job and he can keep on breaking the law and making new laws that take away out rights.

Things are getting so bad for the President that Mr. Bush’s Daddy gets all his old buddies from his presidency together to help his not so smart sonny boy out with some good advice. Daddy’s buddies come up with some real good advice but Sonny decides he is going to send a bunch more soldiers over to Iraq to get a hold of the situation and then he says he is going to take the advice of the General Petraeus. I don’t buy it though because he hasn’t listened to any of the real smart generals yet. Every time somebody asks what’s going on, Sonny says he is standing behind the general kind of like some kind of sissy standing behind his mommy and giving the country the finger.

Now it’s as bad as ever and the country is borrowing all its money from China to pay for all these bullets and bombs and to pay all them Hessian soldiers from that army called Blackwater.

You would think that those Democrats would stand up to that mean bully of a not so smart president and take away his allowance. So far though they won’t do anything and Mr. President is getting so mean that he won’t let those little kids even go to a doctor when they get sick.

I don’t know about the rest of you but I think the country is being lead down the wrong path by a bunch of mean folks that don’t give a hoot about anything excepting what makes them richer and meaner.

These new people who want to be president are going to have a big mess to clean up when they take over next year. Good luck everyone I hope I still have a country that I want to belong to by then.

Peace and Liberty through intelligence, strength and integrity.

What the hell has happened to my country?? Part II

2007-10-25T11:42:00.000-07:00

What the hell has happened to my country??

What the hell has happened to my country??

2007-10-25T08:11:00.000-07:00

What the hell has happened to my country??
A simple man’s view of where we are and how we got there.

These guys are starting to P!$$ ME OFF.

2007-10-24T06:43:00.000-07:00

These guys are starting to P!$$ ME OFF.

We have King George W Bush and Dick “Tator” Cheney on the Tube wanting to start WWIII. Where are the Democrats or should we name the Pelosi / Reid end of the party the Fraiddycrats.

This psycho bunch of Neo-convicts are leading this country into an abyss that once started there will be no stopping. W and Tator are waving 9/11 and the war on terror the way a frighten drunk waves a cheap hand gun in a bar fight.

Neither of these SOB’s have had the nerve to actually go fight in a war but they want to send your sons and daughters, husbands and brothers off into a fight that will surely leave thousands dead and many more with horrible wounds both physical and mental.

Then on the Tube we have Rush O’Reilly, and Glenn Coultergeist all who have never seen a mutilated body lying on a battlefield except on the little screen, calling for another disastrous war. They don’t even want to pay for it they want another generation to foot the bill.

If congress won’t stand up we the people will have to. We already have the authority to do so. I have a copy of this on my desk and I believe that every American print a copy and read it on a regular basis. Then figure out where we are today as to where our founders where when they had enough.

To paraphrase from a document that is eloquent and still relevant today maybe even more so. Our founders demanded courage from Americans. American’s are not a fearful people and when our leaders are leading us into the path of destruction remember these words.

We hold these truths to e self evident, that all men are created equal, not just the rich and powerful, and that they are endowed by their creator, God, Allah, or whoever you think created you, with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, which means anything I want to do as long as I don’t violate anyone else’s rights. That means up to and including wearing a Bush is an A$$hole T-shirt to your rally. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. Mr. President that means if the majority of people want to end this war, or give some hard working man’s children healthcare, you and that sorry Congress need to do our bidding.

That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the People, that’s us, to alter or to abolish it and institute new government, hopefully by electing lawmakers who will lay its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience has shown, that we are more willing to suffer while your evils are sufferable, that to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which we are accustomed.

But when a long train of abuses and wrongful seizure of authority, pursuing invariably the same object demonstrates clearly a design to reduce them under absolute tyranny, it is their right, it is their DUTY, to throw off such government, hopefully by electing lawmakers who will obey and defend the Constitution and to provide new guards for their future security.

The history of this present King of America is a history of repeated injuries and wrongful seizure of authority, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute presidency over our states. To prove this let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

The repeated use of signing statements in regards to the intent of ignoring rightful laws enacted by Congress. In violation of Article 1 Section 7 and Article II, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution.
The repeated use of false or doctored information to engage an illegal war against the country of IRAQ illegally occupy their country in violation of Title 18 U.S. code , Section 371.

Illegally spying on American citizens without obtaining warrants. In violation of Title 50 U.S. Code, Section 1805.

Conspiring to commit torture of prisoners in violation of the Federal Torture Act Title 18 U.S. Code, Section 113C, the UN Torture convention and the Geneva Convention.

Illegal detaining of American citizens without access to legal counsel without charge and without opportunity to appear before a civil judicial officer to challenge the detention.
The ordering of freezing of financial accounts without limit ot how groupls were chosen to be on such a list and further sets forth that he ordered himself the power to create blacklists of any individual he felt was associated with the aforementioned groups. Thereby creating a system of guilt by association.

So I ask Congress are you going to grow a spine and stand down these Chicken-Hawks who would force this country into endless war and the ruination of our democracy. Or will the people have to take to the streets again. I certainly hope it will be the Congress.

Peace and Liberty through intelligence, strength, and integrity.